tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85961375813778582182024-03-20T20:23:23.933-04:00The Complete and Total LoserThoughts of an unsuccessful, never married, late middle-aged, likely terminally ill, American man who recently became an amputee. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger907125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-22825819434859724502024-03-02T11:45:00.002-05:002024-03-02T11:45:59.321-05:00Really, Gmail?<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> They probably spent millions of dollars on labor and computing power to change this:</span> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznDrgQqlBNFaPBnNPeW_7r_NrjZt-VHLB_v1sbDWJhLC_3Qi6o4Q4In9CezKnDQGopLuwHKWMzMU5fALOKP0g-_CJWuJTFtOxfYPUDvluaQJfw06SURsCesfRHKLCKCgkBzytecqZk7lqqURscocgaNMie3S8_bjjfewrWDLTbKmSGNS58JlpeVzsVnM0/s1256/GmailOld.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="1256" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznDrgQqlBNFaPBnNPeW_7r_NrjZt-VHLB_v1sbDWJhLC_3Qi6o4Q4In9CezKnDQGopLuwHKWMzMU5fALOKP0g-_CJWuJTFtOxfYPUDvluaQJfw06SURsCesfRHKLCKCgkBzytecqZk7lqqURscocgaNMie3S8_bjjfewrWDLTbKmSGNS58JlpeVzsVnM0/w551-h343/GmailOld.jpeg" width="551" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">To this: </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdDk3GZ2AvqOwtJirOUc8nZvPUlVKtcpWNdwPvhjoKvHzXJ-ho9yYHn5WLmtZb7uz6MbVmU406xidAThnEKEtRHhJ8lsolslQ0zC3NTdAKYfZd_B9g9RJ6G7uDsXytiGqnvbtLtb3dAeDSOQRV_aqw2b7e1XdbM6bclSVmXUCRyDSo8QCvDVj2ziNqKtC/s1309/GmailNew.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1309" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdDk3GZ2AvqOwtJirOUc8nZvPUlVKtcpWNdwPvhjoKvHzXJ-ho9yYHn5WLmtZb7uz6MbVmU406xidAThnEKEtRHhJ8lsolslQ0zC3NTdAKYfZd_B9g9RJ6G7uDsXytiGqnvbtLtb3dAeDSOQRV_aqw2b7e1XdbM6bclSVmXUCRyDSo8QCvDVj2ziNqKtC/w573-h299/GmailNew.jpeg" width="573" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know about you, but the suspense was killing me!<br /><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-82540944454292260392023-09-27T12:47:00.000-04:002023-09-27T12:47:00.526-04:00<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Of the books I’ve read so far this year, I find myself thinking more about one passage more than any others. It’s from a non-fiction book, Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Under a White Sky,” and it’s not the main theme of the book, which is about human efforts to manipulate the natural world to prevent things like flooding and the loss of species. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5oCx8mEPrQCicue6QpfmF1IkjeqVxrXlITI6QzGIfm7MgOJGkT4C-zOBE3PxsshOhCY7W7dH6bgnyJLGgPHn3Uhrm014X2uk3IHq2Je17MiQ4wBMkfPoDEr8J_CJnpDmU2MON9PhPHd0KTCG5A5cgIrPAhZG7-ZPC3sxCkKY-zVYqvgLbq5v6cPWvqb7A/s1280/GingkoLibrary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5oCx8mEPrQCicue6QpfmF1IkjeqVxrXlITI6QzGIfm7MgOJGkT4C-zOBE3PxsshOhCY7W7dH6bgnyJLGgPHn3Uhrm014X2uk3IHq2Je17MiQ4wBMkfPoDEr8J_CJnpDmU2MON9PhPHd0KTCG5A5cgIrPAhZG7-ZPC3sxCkKY-zVYqvgLbq5v6cPWvqb7A/w395-h296/GingkoLibrary.jpg" width="395" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">We got to talking about climate history and human history. In Steffesen's view, these amounted to more or less the same thing. "If you look at the output of ice cores, it has really changed the picture of the world, our view of past climates and of human evolution," he told me. "Why did human beings not make civilization fifty thousand years ago?<br /> "You know that they had just as big brains as we have today," he went on. "When you put it in a climatic framework, you can say, well, it was the ice age. And also this ice age was so climatically unstable that each time you had the beginnings of a culture, they had to move. Then comes the present interglacial—ten thousand years of very stable climate. The perfect conditions for agriculture. If you look at it, it's amazing. Civilizations in Persia, in China, and in India start at the same time, maybe six thousand years ago. They all developed writing and they all developed religion and they all built cities, all at the same time, because the climate was very stable. I think that if the climate would have been stable fifty thousand years ago, it would have started then. But they had no chance."<br />**Side note: This isn’t meant to start a climate change debate, but I know that some might see it as evidence that the climate has changed cyclicly throughout time. No one would argue that—it’s been well known for decades and supported through geological evidence and ice core samples. But if you’re going to cite this, it would only be fair to note that over the past sixty-five million years, the rate of change since the Industrial Revolution has been about one hundred times faster than at any other time. Or you could just take the excerpt for what it is.</span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-54653021789035402752022-07-10T15:01:00.000-04:002022-07-10T15:01:01.958-04:00Afternoon laisons <p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RM9EnO4eOpk_XKXxZ6NfswTDwSrZtc-VcFOShFh340Me38M1d66SPbwik3MdJSV-N-2hSFV1sDxH76BjjQSZ0Mtq2yQUgnhtFWyLFzf-ie7JF_zgcyQ1869wI0_1j-Jn-p-c18JYYW6RgV7nGQu5fZ4nUz2G22wbgxa6ucd9sbWQPTIYi5czCO1Gbg/s1000/1930s-1940s-man-teacher-professor-vintage-images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1000" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RM9EnO4eOpk_XKXxZ6NfswTDwSrZtc-VcFOShFh340Me38M1d66SPbwik3MdJSV-N-2hSFV1sDxH76BjjQSZ0Mtq2yQUgnhtFWyLFzf-ie7JF_zgcyQ1869wI0_1j-Jn-p-c18JYYW6RgV7nGQu5fZ4nUz2G22wbgxa6ucd9sbWQPTIYi5czCO1Gbg/w640-h550/1930s-1940s-man-teacher-professor-vintage-images.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've been seeing a married woman I met online a few hours a week for the past two months. We meet at a third location for about an hour and a half, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays. I've never met her husband, but he sounds like a nice guy. During these meetings, I give this woman, I'll call her Z, something her husband can't.<br />English lessons. Z is from China and we were connected through a volunteer English teaching program in my county. I taught English as a second language full time in China and Japan for four years in the 1980s and part time in Philadelphia as a volunteer in the nineties. In both cases, I was teaching classes of varying sizes, seldom of fewer than a dozen. This is one-on-one tutoring. <br />The books and materials my student and I have been given are terrific. I had some decent teaching material in my previous stints, but nothing like this stuff. It makes sense that teaching material evolves, of course, but compared to what I had in China in 1985, material twenty years out of date then, this is like comparing a laser printer to a slate board.<br />Z has been in America for four years and if you met her you might be surprised by how low her level of English is and judge her negatively for it. I know better. She lives with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren in a large suburban house. Her daughter and son-in-law have high-paying jobs and are the breadwinners of the family, and Z and her husband's role is to take care of and teach Chinese to the grandchildren, who are four and seven years old. I begin each class with an exercise I call Weekend English. On Tuesday, it’s, "What did you do over the weekend?" and Fridays it's, "What are you doing this weekend?" The suburb Z and I live in is not especially diverse, so when Z said she spends her weekends meeting up with six other Chinese ex-patriots who live within walking distance of her house, I found it hard to believe. <br />She’s getting better and speaking and says her level of confidence is increasing. I’ve told her that learning a new language is like climbing a slippery mountain and that you’ll go up some steps and sometimes fall a few steps and get discouraged. Her understanding of that was in a way that made me think she’s already experienced it. <br />I am awful at learning languages and it was a source of feeling extremely bad about myself. Nearly forty years later, I remember vividly sitting alone on the platform of a small train station on a hot night and trying to grasp a concept in the Japanese language instruction book I had. It was a good book, one used in U.S. colleges at the time. I just couldn’t get it even though other foreigners who did what I was doing could. I realized that if I had a gun with me, I’d put the barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger. It was one of the two strongest urges to commit suicide I’ve ever had, and it frightened me. Good thing Japan has strict gun laws!<br />Z is a basically happy woman, so I don’t worry about that with her. But still, I’m careful to make her language learning experience a positive one as much as I can without being insincere. <br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-67625129990139531182022-03-11T14:15:00.003-05:002022-03-11T14:15:35.264-05:00Cut your gas bills now!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIpbB7wMWQ6BuWrUnHwf1WNsBCEeRwNWKSSVQni-ZD-I5qqy3LR0vfixhV-ElxYtgQGRpoMlU9Bf5OsPcd4R_xNE6iJgD6GcXFp6ebnFQ4onkn4MkcNdCsydOt4mZQUkX33beA6gV3uJwDouXhz_ndCG4WkDzymu3BrlozT6zxyXMNpQYYAakPRrqtuQ=s1707" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1574" data-original-width="1707" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIpbB7wMWQ6BuWrUnHwf1WNsBCEeRwNWKSSVQni-ZD-I5qqy3LR0vfixhV-ElxYtgQGRpoMlU9Bf5OsPcd4R_xNE6iJgD6GcXFp6ebnFQ4onkn4MkcNdCsydOt4mZQUkX33beA6gV3uJwDouXhz_ndCG4WkDzymu3BrlozT6zxyXMNpQYYAakPRrqtuQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Here's how:</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Drive less. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Americans these days see driving someplace at least once a day whether they need to or not as a fundamental right. Spend a little time outside any supermarket and you’ll see many shoppers with one bag, partially full. They shop three or four times a week. (I know someone who goes to Wegman’s every day. It’s a thing, apparently.) Our economy is based on consumerism (around 70 percent) and we’ve been made to feel bad if we’re not participating in it. We’ve been sold the paranoid proposition that “it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it” about thousands of consumer items—toilet paper, guns, pickup trucks and big cars—by corporations that laugh behind our backs at our gullibility.<br /></span></span></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Schedule one day a week on which no one in your two-car (or three or more, if you have kids over sixteen) drives at all. It won’t be easy for most because it’s not “normal” but it is possible for many. Think of that: Fifty-two days a year of not using a drop of gas!<br /> </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Plan ahead when shopping. Make a good list and remember to ask others in your household for input. Warn them that if they don’t ask for it now, they won’t get it until later in the week<br /> </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Make your own coffee. The line to the Starbucks drive-through in Devon often backs up onto Lancaster Avenue. Many in it drive their three-ton cars six miles round trip daily to idle in line for their sugar-enriched cup of overpriced coffee. Stop that. Starbucks will be fine even if you do</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Drive no more than five miles over the speed limit. Put your phone away while driving. You know how at least once a trip someone honks at you while you’re checking text messages because the light has changed and then you floor it to make up for lost time? Back in the olden days, driver’s ed teachers called that a “jackrabbit start,” and they waste fuel</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Car pool. Chances are someone near you goes to the train station when you do, or returns at the same time as you, and that one or both of those trips could be eliminated. Someone nearby probably attends the same house of worship as you</span></span></li></ul><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-147897126362186352022-03-03T23:12:00.000-05:002022-03-03T23:12:11.653-05:00Two friends<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvIdm_Pa_sHHtkBf1_i-GtHbNshcg1lYrA8Z1tOo4KJc6sWiBr6fXNbYVN4Fj5KsfCtkzfHGhT_iSfowg6zfANaZCjVgLolWgVKYZ6XnM44Q5RsEEHp2vDgLBC4_thRl-mIUI9ZrmuyV9U1CETcIO45nglok_Oa6G2unjxythveSNuWKcu1MwYSTA_RQ=s4073" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3054" data-original-width="4073" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvIdm_Pa_sHHtkBf1_i-GtHbNshcg1lYrA8Z1tOo4KJc6sWiBr6fXNbYVN4Fj5KsfCtkzfHGhT_iSfowg6zfANaZCjVgLolWgVKYZ6XnM44Q5RsEEHp2vDgLBC4_thRl-mIUI9ZrmuyV9U1CETcIO45nglok_Oa6G2unjxythveSNuWKcu1MwYSTA_RQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />I have two friends who have never met each other that I haven't heard from yet this year. I suspect the reasons are bad ones having nothing to do with me. Both have mothers who are in their late eighties, one of which has been declining markedly for years. One has been having family issues regarding some rocky times between her son and his wife.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pre-pandemic, I'd have been more struck by not hearing from them than I am. Another person I consider a good friend lives a half-hour-drive away, but we haven't seen each other for two years now. Neither of us are Zoomers or phone people. We email back and forth and I feel like I'm up to date with what's happening in this friend's life.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'm not like most. I go days at a time without uttering a word to anyone at all, and when I break those silences it's only to say hello to the cashier when I'm buying groceries. As normal as this is to me, I do look forward to sitting in the sun and eating lunch with friends again.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-26376261885107349822022-02-22T16:31:00.004-05:002022-02-22T16:31:20.139-05:002/2/22!<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMBG4uR5arofPFLteEY7XZtYJEk3TtQ64Qx6EBovaERzzWyYrGT8m0KEfkW1_wm-q7rlTFrCiW0aikXLjAWd4DEhM_EalmQLXILyGIdPvYEQQ0hlIOb98tokI2N2rk-amKzabVhqm0ylPRMSP8kN1FmVDkilXOVvjP-7dOEJ5kysglD7Y5vPTiYR34Pg=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="1200" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMBG4uR5arofPFLteEY7XZtYJEk3TtQ64Qx6EBovaERzzWyYrGT8m0KEfkW1_wm-q7rlTFrCiW0aikXLjAWd4DEhM_EalmQLXILyGIdPvYEQQ0hlIOb98tokI2N2rk-amKzabVhqm0ylPRMSP8kN1FmVDkilXOVvjP-7dOEJ5kysglD7Y5vPTiYR34Pg=w400-h226" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />This is the eighth time in my life that the date has been a striking one, by some criteria.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The first was 6/6/66. I was eight years old then and would have been aware of people around me talking about it, but it wouldn't have meant anything to me at that age and I don't remember it. I was aware of 7/7/77, though. That was during the summer between my high school graduation and first year of college. Seven is a lucky number in the west and I remember hearing about people betting on the seventh horse in the seventh race at horse tracks on that day, and others playing 777 in states that had legal daily numbers games. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">As a child learning numbers, I liked writing the number 8 and I looked forward to the year 8/8/88. When that day came (it was a Monday), however, I was living in Japan and teaching English and I had no reason to write the date. Nonetheless, that was, looking back, my best year ever. I was youngish, 30, had hit my stride in my job, which paid well, and for a few days it looked like a woman I was nuts about might be nuts about me. (She was, a little, but not enough and we never did more than kiss. She married someone else in 1989.) </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another good day was 9/9/99, a Thursday. I was working as a reporter for a weekly newspaper and at the time it looked like I might have a somewhat successful career in journalism, despite having entered the field relatively late in life, when I was in my late thirties. I did not, but I didn't know it then. The paper I worked for came out on Thursdays then, meaning my deadline was on Wednesday afternoon, so Thursdays were a relaxed day for me and my fellow employees, a time to sit around the office and think of what stories to cover for the next edition.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The beginning of a new century provides more special dates than the rest of it because of the aughts: 1/1/01, 2/2/02, etc. Now we're back to the dates that get mentioned coming just every eleven years.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I miss being young enough that exceptional dates seemed somehow important to me.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-61861384787077151432022-02-12T14:18:00.000-05:002022-02-12T14:18:02.332-05:00New car!<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> My 1998 Toyota Camry was in the shop for three days this week having its front bumper replaced due to having been hit in a parking lot by a careless driver. Insurance paid for a rental. The rental was a late model Audi Quattro. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp6b0roB0ARX60LyelP032Fh6MoRq9qwJdUvKiNSnr9hPJySRJRCiHDMX-B9EjfNVjbMTAj-2xPx9fZpGui2nDJEa-wh5BV6PIg-zuzmhRfp5dy8lLEOIOqXPwb3QlwrW5hDQNZ0__DN4_YPmVi_oQEZJoU3GAbu6J0_5POTv5MpjUAey0Dfqa-vSwLw=s3859" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2730" data-original-width="3859" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp6b0roB0ARX60LyelP032Fh6MoRq9qwJdUvKiNSnr9hPJySRJRCiHDMX-B9EjfNVjbMTAj-2xPx9fZpGui2nDJEa-wh5BV6PIg-zuzmhRfp5dy8lLEOIOqXPwb3QlwrW5hDQNZ0__DN4_YPmVi_oQEZJoU3GAbu6J0_5POTv5MpjUAey0Dfqa-vSwLw=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It wasn't easy going from a '98 to a 21st century automobile and yes, I was looking for a keyhole when I got in it. All that tech! I didn't drive it long enough to trust the backup camera, and I'm still impressed by how the multiple cameras stitch an image of your surroundings to make it look as if you're getting images sent from a hovering drone. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">A funny thing about driving a new car is how fast you get used it. I drove the Audi as little as possible and didn't touch it at all for one of the days. (Putting gas in it wasn't needed.) Yet once I'd swapped back to the Camry, which is ten inches lower, I paused a little when I first exited it, wondering how the ground got so much nearer. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The new front bumper on my car, by the way, makes me think of someone who's had a facelift. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIBEy33ziClpodmTv6oiVtjpMxHXYoAUZPMmMfCnFKGLGnDAFWGk_Q_EDzIggy1VWiFhnaIo8YVjCjdfLo6HZYFNLtRXuky8ScB3feYnsr2S5AgETIIPVrptAMf-G_x0ubK_k52fDtEcunm9WYyeDEv_uGL4XVAccs0pa1xBvaw7NDQQv3ofsNcCCrLA=s647" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="647" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIBEy33ziClpodmTv6oiVtjpMxHXYoAUZPMmMfCnFKGLGnDAFWGk_Q_EDzIggy1VWiFhnaIo8YVjCjdfLo6HZYFNLtRXuky8ScB3feYnsr2S5AgETIIPVrptAMf-G_x0ubK_k52fDtEcunm9WYyeDEv_uGL4XVAccs0pa1xBvaw7NDQQv3ofsNcCCrLA=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-15190947717687811332022-02-01T20:10:00.006-05:002022-02-01T20:10:39.754-05:00Time passes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgffzeINTYrO1lECNRPVZt_tdJppCC4Qxb1DzeZGyku0ulrGDqQ7MXC6pP9ZLkFSs1iZzFdA-CDBpmW0YJy63d0C6i0HLljsM8F04Mk6ED4thkmDBalUauRWYXRZVizK96wESJvi7r5WQ5nZLLUSzARAVmb5kq9yZuGsMJoxo-JdneTAO_cc67at_ZpbQ=s1545" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="1545" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgffzeINTYrO1lECNRPVZt_tdJppCC4Qxb1DzeZGyku0ulrGDqQ7MXC6pP9ZLkFSs1iZzFdA-CDBpmW0YJy63d0C6i0HLljsM8F04Mk6ED4thkmDBalUauRWYXRZVizK96wESJvi7r5WQ5nZLLUSzARAVmb5kq9yZuGsMJoxo-JdneTAO_cc67at_ZpbQ=w640-h412" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today is my mother's birthday. She died ten a little over years ago at age 80. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although I never considered myself a mama's boy, for many years thoughts of her death were so fresh they brought only solemn sadness. Now that's faded a little, though I'm still respectful of her and the life she lived. Today, while writing in a journal I write in every morning, I found myself forgetting to capitalize "Mom" when using the word as a proper noun. Later, when emailing a friend who shares my sense of humor, I wrote that my mother would have been 91 today if not for a tragic skydiving accident. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'm glad I've lived long enough that her memory has balance. She's still a daily presence in my life, but not one that saps joy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the photo she's recovering from a bad cold. The boy in bed is her big brother, who I'm named after, home on leave from the Marines. The nation is on the cusp of entering World War II. The newspaper she has is <i>The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin,</i> which went out of business in 1982 after a run of 135 years. For years it had the largest circulation of any evening newspaper in America, during a time when there were many. (People my age can tell it's that paper by the two-column wide spread of comics on the back page of one section.) <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">It looks like a happy day for her. No school because of her cold, warm in bed with the newspaper, <i>Tip Top Magazine,</i> with its stories and puzzles, her big brother, a Marine fly boy. Both she and her brother with a vast number of years ahead of them, not knowing, of course, that they would die less than a month apart in fall of 2011.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The photo would have been taken by her father, who died six years before I was born. </span></span><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-33163234541892459832022-01-01T17:02:00.001-05:002022-01-01T17:02:10.355-05:00New Year's Eve Channel Surfing<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The shows marking the coming new year last night aimed at a demographic much different from my own, so I wandered the dial with my TV remote. I don't have cable and if you don't have cable and live in a heavily populated area like I do you get many channels over the air. They're somehow affiliated with network channels but have higher numbers after a decimal point. In the computer world, the higher the number, the newer and more improved the program. In TV, it's the opposite. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyi39WE40lE6A1nITnci1DAt9lBxuMMOmnnkcy7c2Xmmc5-qVhyfNOaKuQLLJ1f6gZrgx_fgjg7fTg7y_v-GqWrJGf5vPv68UsZWJXpBGlR1zyitHgZlzGBa_YyVxeaj9_uQvZS9n4Z4IIJhsLN6iByLGcrKVr2jBAvqcX77cMxQyug-EcrQ2bi_utpw=s600" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyi39WE40lE6A1nITnci1DAt9lBxuMMOmnnkcy7c2Xmmc5-qVhyfNOaKuQLLJ1f6gZrgx_fgjg7fTg7y_v-GqWrJGf5vPv68UsZWJXpBGlR1zyitHgZlzGBa_YyVxeaj9_uQvZS9n4Z4IIJhsLN6iByLGcrKVr2jBAvqcX77cMxQyug-EcrQ2bi_utpw=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Last night I came across a <i>The Tonight Show</i> episode that aired on New Year's Eve of 1975, forty-six years ago exactly. I tuned in late and Orson Bean was talking about how he recently communed with a butterfly as he sat nude in the backyard of his South California home. The butterfly flew here and there and eventually landed on his finger at which point man and insect stared at each other for half a minute after which the butterfly took to the skies. Bean said he felt he experienced what it was like to be a butterfly, and that the butterfly experienced what it was like to be Orson Bean.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are many remarkable things about this to me. The most remarkable is that I remembered watching that episode as it originally aired. I was seventeen. I'd forgotten it was Orson Bean, misremembering the guest as Charles Grodin, but I remembered much of what was said verbatim. I was very much a magical thinker at that age, engrossed in ESP, levitation, telekinesis, the supernatural in general, and I would be so for several years to come. (Eventually, after much research and reading and living, none of those things proved true to a level that satisfied me and I now see the world from a scientific viewpoint.) <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Orson Bean was the most interesting guest on the show, which included Joan Rivers, Charles Nelson Riley, and Scatman Crothers. He was forty-seven at the time and was, to my generation, known more as a TV personality—a frequent panelist on game shows and guest on talk shows—than as an actor, though one of his later roles was as the 105-year-old Dr. Lester in the 1999 <i>Being John Malcovich,</i> a favorite of mine and a certifiable cult movie. ("If I was 80 years younger, I'd box your ears.") Bean, who died in 2020, showed a knowledge of theater you don't see now. (Look up what it means in the theater world to "swallow the file" and see what you find.) <i>The Tonight Show</i> back then was on five nights a week and was an hour and a half long, which meant that even with that number of guests, who all stayed from the time they came on until the time they left, the conversations meandered. Now, they're largely semi-scripted and promotional and about the only reason to watch these shows is for the host's monologue.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Bean's butterfly story was representative of that era, the mid 1970s, when such things were common. An actor, he would probably have tried drugs like LSD or others, and been very open to the things I was even at his age. Watching the show made me remember myself at that age. I would have been watching it alone, both brothers out, my parents at a party elsewhere. It was on a Wednesday night and I'd be off school for a the week. Other shows would have recapped the year that ended, highlighting events like the fall of Saigon and the movie <i>Jaws,</i> the first to be called a blockbuster. Betty Ford, the first lady, was <i>Time Magazine's</i> Person of the Year in an era when women were seldom given that honor. Americans anticipated the coming year as one of celebration as their nation marked the bicentennial of its founding. Things that got no attention in 1975 but would later happened, as always: Two young men founded a company they named Microsoft; a little known group of comedians started a show called <i>Saturday Night Live;</i> Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, and Tiger Woods were born. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Channel surfing used to be a thing. It's not now. With streaming services algorithms suggest shows people want, or they're dug into their beliefs enough that their TVs are set to the channel that best entertains them or reinforces their belief. But sometimes, it pays to just sit there and scroll at random. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQKAit4RUVloHaOmtCWtJJqRO_zSzWelYFo2kkaIGz9Kxps80noRuAm9bPfd5pqVi6wEZ0OanyVZBq2E_gHzXybNK8_FeDGwrvTY6o4AR7GGIEB00BYc8pzApgmaWScG41FJQEzVWsoKN-2B-KrgRFnvYgPjaHXLTxpRuHy1pQw0lsGiJsjBM6_1m7AA=s480" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQKAit4RUVloHaOmtCWtJJqRO_zSzWelYFo2kkaIGz9Kxps80noRuAm9bPfd5pqVi6wEZ0OanyVZBq2E_gHzXybNK8_FeDGwrvTY6o4AR7GGIEB00BYc8pzApgmaWScG41FJQEzVWsoKN-2B-KrgRFnvYgPjaHXLTxpRuHy1pQw0lsGiJsjBM6_1m7AA=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-79899038150977921532021-12-03T11:45:00.002-05:002021-12-03T11:45:43.038-05:00Simple Seashore Shell Scintilla<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1GkWAo8T0vioy-vng4RFJCCBCU6TZVgWQDXIAI4OCzKXLNPK12tNjba_rmvpk0n5AqX0wEKSum7wrMdDZimDlOt3ZAuuBc31OKHcBL8m9unogThtnlxAqpSRf3pFUq82po6TVsKv_lWChwb_GmK1aA-JjkEM56GJgm4esgaw-pRJXCpS1fF9Mze_wHA=s2048" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2048" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1GkWAo8T0vioy-vng4RFJCCBCU6TZVgWQDXIAI4OCzKXLNPK12tNjba_rmvpk0n5AqX0wEKSum7wrMdDZimDlOt3ZAuuBc31OKHcBL8m9unogThtnlxAqpSRf3pFUq82po6TVsKv_lWChwb_GmK1aA-JjkEM56GJgm4esgaw-pRJXCpS1fF9Mze_wHA=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">While in Cape May, New Jersey, last month, my first time at a beach in decades, I noticed that the shells that appealed to me weren't the pristine ones I'd have treasured in my youth but gnarled oyster shells, incomplete, rubbed smooth by wind, sand, and water. <br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-29115665175395658442021-11-22T15:27:00.000-05:002021-11-22T15:27:56.157-05:00Shore enough<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5U3HAB43UWw0B6uQOy9LMz8gi8JUVdBUnTptK4F62bH0gzGJ_xzl-wjcY117hvUc2xSBHhFG477WQoJpTkimEMx8HO_U5H2b6U0s4R2Ltbjwy2A6Ntu18smjRDMufSz4Jc13vVHT6Vr36/s2577/CMDrama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="2577" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5U3HAB43UWw0B6uQOy9LMz8gi8JUVdBUnTptK4F62bH0gzGJ_xzl-wjcY117hvUc2xSBHhFG477WQoJpTkimEMx8HO_U5H2b6U0s4R2Ltbjwy2A6Ntu18smjRDMufSz4Jc13vVHT6Vr36/w640-h302/CMDrama.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> I went to Cape May, New Jersey, for three days last week, which was in mid-November. I've always been an off season type and I'm even more of one now. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I had no idea what crutching on sand would be like, even after using crutches for over three years on a variety of surfaces. Would they just sink in and make going anyplace impossible? They did sink in, but never more than three inches or so whether on dry sand, wet sand, or in-between sand. I could ambulate fast enough to not feel ridiculous but not fast enough that I'd invite someone to go for a walk with me unless they were very patient. Using crutches on dry sand is great exercise. Low impact and if you fall, you'll be fine. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETNe2CAN54m4nxw3Q2ya8U_RVT54HTw9YHR4Iifqllluk5Gk3lNv2jNeh0XMuu9unEihI1jEuQUhUo-14m0F0KfuMZ3q5LkzOmviv8CbQ8oIn2q-YN1hZJPDOJH95oJGFrvsCMAjSWS_9/s2048/CMCorgis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1367" data-original-width="2048" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETNe2CAN54m4nxw3Q2ya8U_RVT54HTw9YHR4Iifqllluk5Gk3lNv2jNeh0XMuu9unEihI1jEuQUhUo-14m0F0KfuMZ3q5LkzOmviv8CbQ8oIn2q-YN1hZJPDOJH95oJGFrvsCMAjSWS_9/w400-h268/CMCorgis.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> The people I met in Cape May were friendly, but I didn't meet many of them and during the summer season those who work in stores and the like may become as surly as those anywhere else, though I'd think being near the sea might put people in a good mood for more hours a day than if they lived elsewhere. Fresh air and sunshine, even in November. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the three days I spent was much warmer than average. This photo shows that a woman (or a man with small feet) had run barefoot on the beach. The usual person I saw was either a dog walker or someone fishing. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOa28sHhDP8HvguAXMft2gvM1BjSgCjS3CWKbKipMBvehsulI8WBIBNznxObt_1rnCS8qvOrTonY3AgNJxpeyc3jZeRGGhvh29l6OqtO3nQ2mzahbiRUhaYlvPpbvBg2sxL_8QfG8CsuGu/s2048/DSC01056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2048" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOa28sHhDP8HvguAXMft2gvM1BjSgCjS3CWKbKipMBvehsulI8WBIBNznxObt_1rnCS8qvOrTonY3AgNJxpeyc3jZeRGGhvh29l6OqtO3nQ2mzahbiRUhaYlvPpbvBg2sxL_8QfG8CsuGu/w400-h268/DSC01056.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The last time I took an overnight vacation was in November of 2000, when I spent ten days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The only other times I haven't slept in my own bed have been housesitting gigs, which I no longer do, hospital stays, which I do too often now, and one funeral in 2002 that was overseas. The only other traveling I've done since 2000 has been day trips from Philadelphia to New York City via a cheap bus. <br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-57768167636402028662021-10-22T16:43:00.003-04:002021-10-22T16:43:20.352-04:00A sign of age<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVVNlAj-1dLbz8ZwEx-QgWuvLQsARA1adS1E0Q52VxykJZPfs_NiMHawD9CfWxaMb46ETNYzsdw18UKvKfILPvOICpXHYSFxFGLfSNSWF2XsMXCispNEXApcSw3koIAKxgQ3XDt7rM3ZP/s620/5448.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="620" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVVNlAj-1dLbz8ZwEx-QgWuvLQsARA1adS1E0Q52VxykJZPfs_NiMHawD9CfWxaMb46ETNYzsdw18UKvKfILPvOICpXHYSFxFGLfSNSWF2XsMXCispNEXApcSw3koIAKxgQ3XDt7rM3ZP/w640-h384/5448.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">What does it say
about the people I know that the last three emails I wrote had the
phrase "sorry to hear that ..." in the first sentence? One was to
my brother, who's having his boy gland zapped, which isn't bothering
him, and hormone treatments, which are. The second was to an ex B&N
coworker who needs to have surgery on her neck in November to fuse parts
of it together, and the third was to a friend who's mother is ill enough that she's moved in with her.
She said the highlights of her days are when she walks the family dog. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It says that I'm gittin' old.<br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If
I was in my twenties, I bet a lot of my emails would say things
like, "So happy to hear you're getting married!", "Congrats on the
promotion!" and "You're buying a house? Cool!" Of course, when I was in
my twenties email was something known about and used by only tech geeks
for exchanging things incomprehensible to people like me. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-18632146414801515282021-10-02T21:49:00.000-04:002021-10-02T21:49:14.915-04:00Getting high<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFKpYrKr32vTCcOLceAargFuAt5dGnGrTDGLPjcyYRUh2c7UHG1fLe_e_tsmwp6q1jHpJMcDvN5h9d7fDs0V9nbBy45jOrfWGPqTyqrOA71bTUTP4o9YaZGpVJbuLQcpMoA0tOAesXQ4c/s1262/flex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1262" data-original-width="728" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGFKpYrKr32vTCcOLceAargFuAt5dGnGrTDGLPjcyYRUh2c7UHG1fLe_e_tsmwp6q1jHpJMcDvN5h9d7fDs0V9nbBy45jOrfWGPqTyqrOA71bTUTP4o9YaZGpVJbuLQcpMoA0tOAesXQ4c/w210-h363/flex.jpg" width="210" /></a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I've been eating a not-quite-keto diet for about six months now. By not quite, I mean many fewer carbohydrates—goodbye sugar, pasta, bread, a variety of fruit—and more vegetables (though I've always eaten more of those than most), but not gorging on fat, as many on those diets do. The idea of frying up a pound of bacon sounds fun sometimes but it's not for me. I eat modest servings of salmon and, occasionally, chicken. I eat six eggs a week, some cheese, and yogurt. I've been combining this with intermittent fasting, which for me means eating only between noon and seven p.m. and not eating at all two days a week. I have a four-ounce glass of rice wine once a week.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I feel great. I've lost over ten pounds and my mind has never been clearer. I exercise fairly often. Both of my cancers are at bay, I sleep well, and there's been relatively little stress in my life. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then I got blood work done last week. </span></span><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">My cholesterol level has soared. I've read in many places that eggs don't have the kind of cholesterol that damages human hearts, but I'll change to two a week anyway, and have just one slice of cheese a week too. I've also read that keto diets and fasting can make cholesterol go up and that the form of cholesterol your liver is producing isn't harmful. Something to do with the particle size. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejuVfuteYmhOpPnb3DzKGcu05GZaB7LdfyhkCBIL1Vx4_K5bgEFZbOavrcVa0xy_HGCWWAFGCxWiqU7bYmeyvhG3Ie5_9QDJUU17gWxa1w2n9Ev4Ls9tIpr4IMIGvtAjCutO9V9AOY25-/s300/%25DA%2586%25D8%25B1%25D8%25A8%25DB%258C-%25D8%25AE%25D9%2588%25D9%2586.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejuVfuteYmhOpPnb3DzKGcu05GZaB7LdfyhkCBIL1Vx4_K5bgEFZbOavrcVa0xy_HGCWWAFGCxWiqU7bYmeyvhG3Ie5_9QDJUU17gWxa1w2n9Ev4Ls9tIpr4IMIGvtAjCutO9V9AOY25-/s0/%25DA%2586%25D8%25B1%25D8%25A8%25DB%258C-%25D8%25AE%25D9%2588%25D9%2586.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">My doctor is a good one. He's in his late sixties, a G.P., but the kind of doctor who keeps up with things. I mentioned that after a painful operation in August of 2020 I'd been cleared to use medical marijuana, which is the only kind legal in my state (Pennsylvania, which is technically a commonwealth, not a state, but I was trying to be less wordy. Blew that, didn't I?) but that it did little for me and he said the weed (tincture in my case; I have lung issues and I don't want to smoke or vape) in Pennsylvania was bad because all of it has to be grown and processed in Pennsylvania, which prevents the best strains from being sold here. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOExTQQe5SAP03HNadqnjo0PGFsQPqwZV_KsZ9XnGVW8KijIqWBb-P3JmwPrA1sHqapLNNYeP-bHnbAoJcdIPlN2qffIZXXxOfnGy1iQlWA_nIodpOGz3H6hfkMwbWw8PXmw6SDGwrJPfW/s1200/chronic-snoop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOExTQQe5SAP03HNadqnjo0PGFsQPqwZV_KsZ9XnGVW8KijIqWBb-P3JmwPrA1sHqapLNNYeP-bHnbAoJcdIPlN2qffIZXXxOfnGy1iQlWA_nIodpOGz3H6hfkMwbWw8PXmw6SDGwrJPfW/w356-h178/chronic-snoop.jpg" width="356" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I doubt my doctor has taken a hit in his life and I was surprised he knew so much about it. He's on a bicycling trip this week, a vacation, and will get in touch with me when he returns. I know he'll want to put me on statins. I'll resist this unless scans show real problems and want a recount after a month or so of improved eating and without a thirty-six-hour fast before the blood draw. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-29913255176273101602021-08-20T16:45:00.005-04:002021-08-20T16:45:50.323-04:00On the driveway<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyvKOr85-x85D7qmN7Y0_UdozAt27Vmn_BxrJ_QvQ6lIuHJeS3YavxqWyUjVHyrAfrv3cigZGCuHoRRSer5q3Kpd41ieKNi8ET4tvCRI6xy23IuNuCGviye5mQuaGBN9iIFOwIyPGBEqxX/s2048/Sympathy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyvKOr85-x85D7qmN7Y0_UdozAt27Vmn_BxrJ_QvQ6lIuHJeS3YavxqWyUjVHyrAfrv3cigZGCuHoRRSer5q3Kpd41ieKNi8ET4tvCRI6xy23IuNuCGviye5mQuaGBN9iIFOwIyPGBEqxX/w484-h364/Sympathy.jpg" width="484" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The most interesting letters I've ever read are ones I've found. Unlike hearing half of a phone conversation ("When? ... Oh ... Uh-huh ... Nah, I'm gonna stay over there till Tuesday") they have enough context that you get them ("After Montana, we drove up to Canada and went to that town that had a museum of coaches, which sounds like it'd be boring but it's not"). </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Between the two is cards and I found one after recycling day in my neighborhood. There was no envelope and I know my immediate neighbors and wasn't from any of them.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The outside is in the photo above. Inside, the printed copy is:</span></span></p><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">May each tear that falls be a gentle reminder that you and your loved one meant so much to each other, and that no loss or sorrow, time or distance can ever take that away.</span></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">With Deepest Sympathy</span></span></b></p></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Under this, hand written:</span></span></p><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">So sorry for your loss. Our thoughts & prayers are with you and your family.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jerry and Pat T.</span></span></p></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I guess when I die there will be a few similar cliché ridden (in both forms of copy) cards and letters sent to my brothers, who will be my only undiluted survivors. I hope they'll at least write out the word "and" instead of using an ampersand, like I do when I'm writing grocery lists. Not that I'll know or care about it.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-42577903439093987402021-08-04T17:48:00.001-04:002021-08-04T17:48:47.453-04:00The Loser's answers<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbY4iHHxVXlbckzoYG0CNaHjex9tEmify5U7ckZWl-lVqebTpSq941oFKEKp1sn-MmriPSqY25ik-KSi138gcypy_S4HklVpu_EvsFItvTIgCn4o85XT1RyIBrWY4rSpSpSxddPiEVyzZ/s2048/P1070441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbY4iHHxVXlbckzoYG0CNaHjex9tEmify5U7ckZWl-lVqebTpSq941oFKEKp1sn-MmriPSqY25ik-KSi138gcypy_S4HklVpu_EvsFItvTIgCn4o85XT1RyIBrWY4rSpSpSxddPiEVyzZ/s320/P1070441.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />The below, by Scott Mautz <cite class="b1yvsvix"></cite>from Inc.com, is the usual kind of thing you see online these days. Usually, it's pure clickbait, sometimes it's valid. In this case, it's more valid than in most others. Unless you're a Complete and Total Loser. </b></span></span><br /><p></p><p> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>A 27-Year Study Says 1 Thing Is Key to Happiness and Longevity in Work and Life</b></span></p><h2 class="d149txkx"><p class="description">It all comes from one thing that you can spark with eight questions to yourself.<span class="caption"><span class="caption-text"></span><span class="caption-space"></span></span><span class="credit"><span class="credit-text"></span></span></p></h2><div class="content-body"><article class="a18y1bts"><div><div class="r3dvya1" data-cy="parsed-content"><section class="c19xbjrv"><p class="body">
Here’s a news flash: In today’s world, work and life are intertwined beyond separability. We’d love to work longer, more productively, with more passion, and live that way too. Which is why a study published in May 2019 caught my eye.
</p><p class="body">
The study was published in the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> by a team of University of Michigan researchers. The team analyzed data from the 27-year-old Health and Retirement Study (a U.S.-based, nationally representative well-being study) and found that one thing led to people living longer.
</p><p class="body">
That one thing is inescapably interwoven with happiness, fulfillment, and maximum productivity at work.
</p><h2 class="body title">Working and living with a sense of purpose and meaning.</h2><p class="body">
The researchers found that those who had meaning and a sense
of purpose (as measured by answers to questions from well-being
self-assessments) lived longer lives than those who'd self-reported
little to no sense of purpose and meaning.
</p><p class="body">
Other University of Michigan research (2010) clearly shows that working with a sense of purpose and meaning
leads to far greater engagement, motivation, productivity, and
retention.
</p><p class="body">
Purpose is the profound “Why?” Having it creates a sense of
mission to do something worthy. It’s your significant “yet-to-do” in
life. Purpose integrates <i data-highlightable="1">who you are</i> with <i data-highlightable="1">what you do</i>.
It inspires us to renew our commitments and stretch further to manifest
it, which is why having a sense of purpose in your work is so powerful.
</p><p class="body">
So the case for working and living with a sense of purpose is crystal clear. But how to enable that?
</p><p class="body">
One word: introspection.
</p><p class="body">
In my book <i data-highlightable="1">Make It Matter</i>, I
shared a set of introspective questions, the answers to which can help
you identify your work and life purpose. I’ll share a selection of those
questions here. To unlock your purpose, consider each of the following:
</p><h2 class="body title">1. What are your superpowers?</h2><p class="body">
Don’t be modest. You know what you’re <i data-highlightable="1">really</i>
good at. How can you leverage that strength, like a superhero, to do
good for the world? When you choose to use that strength towards a
purpose, something bigger than yourself, it elevates to superpower
status.</p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: None, unless knowing you suck at anything worth doing is a superpower. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">2. What are your values and beliefs?</h2><p class="body">
What do you most strongly believe in—to the extent it helps
guide your everyday actions? Staying true to those non-negotiable
values is one of the simplest, most direct ways I encourage people to
work and live with a sense of purpose.
</p><p class="body">
And when people at work see you unswervingly living your
values, even in times of adversity, it’s downright inspiring. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: Whatever those of the people around me are at the time. It's my pathetic way to get people to like me. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">3. What would you do for free?</h2><p class="body">
Pay attention to what you’re doing when you lose track of
time. What do you daydream about? Those things you get absorbed in can
be signals of something you were meant to do and that if you pursued
further would bring profound meaning. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: Nothing I haven't tried and failed at already. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">4. What have been your happiest moments?</h2><p class="body">
What were you specifically doing in those moments and what
about them brought you such joy? Look for themes. The common threads can
provide clues as to what your purpose might be. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: Pushing stalled cars to the side of roads. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">5. What have you learned from career misfires and triumphs?</h2><p class="body">
Wrong turns in your career, while also being valuable
learning experiences, help you bring the contrasting triumphs into
focus. Reflect on what was happening during both misfires that brought
pain and victories that brought joy. Who were you in those times? What
did you excel or flounder at? Clues to your purpose lie within. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: That I'm not good enough at doing anything I enjoy doing to make a decent living from it. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">6. What deed needs doing?</h2><p class="body">
What is your cause? What problem needs solving? What does
the world need that you're well suited to provide? Note the
higher-order, bigger-than-you, nature of each of these questions. Our
purpose often feeds something greater than ourselves. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: The best thing for me to do in my remaining years is to keep out of the way of others. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">7. What would co-workers miss if you weren't there?</h2><p class="body">
This speaks to those inspiring, magnetic characteristics you
have that others are drawn to and well-served by. What would be missed
could be telltale signs of what you can perpetuate and accentuate in
service of your purpose. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: That's happened a few times already and I've been forgotten quickly and replaced by better people. </b></span></span><br /></p><h2 class="body title">8. What would people say you were meant to do?</h2><p class="body">
What characteristic would others feel compelled to speak
about in your absence? What have others said about your talents? Have
you ever heard the phrase, “Wow, you could be a ______”? Still more
clues on the path to purpose.
</p><p class="body">
So be purposeful about discovering, articulating, and living
and working with purpose. Lots of things will be longer (and
deeper)--your work, life, happiness, and fulfillment. </p><p class="body"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Loser's answer: Clean things. Offices, especially. Wash dishes, polish metal, sand wood. </b></span></span><br /></p><p class="body"><i><span class="sc-fzoLag jGCBHT eyebrow-container"><span class="sc-fzoyAV kKCIPp eyebrow"> Scott Mautz is a keynote speaker and the author of </span></span></i><span class="sc-fzoLag jGCBHT eyebrow-container"><span class="sc-fzoyAV kKCIPp eyebrow">Find the Fire <i>and</i> Make It Matter</span></span><i><span class="sc-fzoLag jGCBHT eyebrow-container"><span class="sc-fzoyAV kKCIPp eyebrow">. Follow him on Twitter @scott_mautz. </span><span class="sc-fzoyAV gUyIvZ eyebrow"></span></span></i></p></section></div></div></article></div><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-86390579568487660572021-06-15T16:50:00.000-04:002021-06-15T16:50:02.602-04:00Heart trouble<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Yesterday morning, my brother came home after exercising and complained of light headedness. His wife drove him to a nearby hospital and by the end of the day he had a chestful of stents to wedge open arteries that were at a Jerry Garcia stage of being clogged. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1B1tZlA-fth6Q44-fh-KS58n_GFtOqjNK5vXYgLA0g2KPELaUN1RcmHsGzWoMcoDGn1ng3m9CkmWg0KijPO470CGmA80RGz4pYPun5xTDfsO20vKvEbRS_YRQP-4i0Nr06fjbrpBJHk1/s1800/external-content.duckduckgo.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1B1tZlA-fth6Q44-fh-KS58n_GFtOqjNK5vXYgLA0g2KPELaUN1RcmHsGzWoMcoDGn1ng3m9CkmWg0KijPO470CGmA80RGz4pYPun5xTDfsO20vKvEbRS_YRQP-4i0Nr06fjbrpBJHk1/s320/external-content.duckduckgo.com.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">My other brother (there are three of us) is also having heart concerns and is having scans and stress tests and other monitoring. And there's me, with two types of cancer and an aneurysm in my heart. We range in age from sixty-three to sixty-seven now, with me being the youngest. I'm still betting that of the three of us, I'm still the least likely to make it to seventy. With an aneurysm, if something happens you don't call an ambulance, you call a hearse. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSHtueDyghWJgAgZvtPEcHLRe7ctX4STFeMXveF6OUX_0hO2XFAtHUhAfsPWBjQl6DWDKTp2tpiK3qQZ9s0nPwMjCmbx_zkjnULcLYwzBkbnm2vW7lM-lUZ1CvopfGAYZjhHu4GBETP-a/s474/external-content2.duckduckgo.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSHtueDyghWJgAgZvtPEcHLRe7ctX4STFeMXveF6OUX_0hO2XFAtHUhAfsPWBjQl6DWDKTp2tpiK3qQZ9s0nPwMjCmbx_zkjnULcLYwzBkbnm2vW7lM-lUZ1CvopfGAYZjhHu4GBETP-a/s320/external-content2.duckduckgo.com.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Completely unrelated: Two days ago a friend and her boyfriend came from the city to the suburbs and we met up at Valley Forge Park. I'd never spent time with the boyfriend before. We spent around three hours there. The friend, who is in her late thirties, did something I consider remarkable these days: She didn't take out her cell phone once. Her boyfriend did, but just once and briefly. I considered her not doing this a great gift of a different kind. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_n1ZtmGkmHYnO00mMj9S2oU17KtsF4teo6gtoJMA6ArL-G2TyzM7sdVhRlGRo9_qpJWbqFs21JzWHBZAvTlmUPU_1xRT1J5bJn_TaDwra9WsYj5-t0k-oD2aHN-S4PyXlMyV2v6ORcuy/s474/external-content3.duckduckgo.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="474" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_n1ZtmGkmHYnO00mMj9S2oU17KtsF4teo6gtoJMA6ArL-G2TyzM7sdVhRlGRo9_qpJWbqFs21JzWHBZAvTlmUPU_1xRT1J5bJn_TaDwra9WsYj5-t0k-oD2aHN-S4PyXlMyV2v6ORcuy/w410-h288/external-content3.duckduckgo.com.jpg" width="410" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-33345027192631434022021-04-04T13:00:00.002-04:002021-04-04T13:00:33.557-04:00Half vaccinated<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xEnPgSoFyZ6CBxTo3WtDftCaVDzLjkk5vt9td0J0QE-opxc2Gnnu-Nw36nyqEUEK4XAGtH62QXL4NbTV4r2DAi1BbtHD9H1iVn658KpnyaDFUDGWejA1asily73jq_cMCcZihKtTaubh/s2048/Artichoke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8xEnPgSoFyZ6CBxTo3WtDftCaVDzLjkk5vt9td0J0QE-opxc2Gnnu-Nw36nyqEUEK4XAGtH62QXL4NbTV4r2DAi1BbtHD9H1iVn658KpnyaDFUDGWejA1asily73jq_cMCcZihKtTaubh/w640-h480/Artichoke.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />It feels funny to be half vaccinated the way I am now. In between shots. I'm somewhat safer, but not completely. It seems to make many less cautious, but in my case more so. Even when fully vaccinated, there's a ten percent chance you can catch COVID. You probably won't get as sick as you would if you were unvaccinated, by who wants to take chances? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Overall, it's good to have some protection, even though I seldom go out and when I do it's to uncrowded grocery stores. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Life drags on as before. I sleep at odd hours and get up in part just to get the newspaper off the driveway so my neighbors don't think I'm dead. I eat tiny, healthy meals in a futile effort to lose a few pounds. One one indulgence is eating artichokes, which remind me of my mother because she, my brother, and I would eat them when my father, who saw little point to them, was on business trips. They are a convenient way to consume melted butter without going to a movie theater.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-59736845301107881122021-02-12T18:58:00.003-05:002021-02-12T18:58:31.750-05:00Snow days<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCvPoEDHY5Ac33Y9fSNnOGoowzIabCNMd1XzXzfTgfoEfXIBhYdBuOAR_yzAAwMGhQORhrfJeXT67LKaPUuHvDzA301QHf-2n5Js0ciay2eL-WLJsUMZ_ut5V7y5yJenQNYZVcJiNX-to/s2048/Katherine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCvPoEDHY5Ac33Y9fSNnOGoowzIabCNMd1XzXzfTgfoEfXIBhYdBuOAR_yzAAwMGhQORhrfJeXT67LKaPUuHvDzA301QHf-2n5Js0ciay2eL-WLJsUMZ_ut5V7y5yJenQNYZVcJiNX-to/w640-h480/Katherine.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />It's been a snowy February in my mid-Atlantic region, where just three weeks ago long-range forecasters were predicting a winter of very little snow: "Sorry skiers!" they were saying.<br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But now there are several inches of snow on the ground with more to come. And once there's snow on a huge tract of land, reflecting the sun's heat back into space, what will happen next is anyone's guess.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">While walking to the end of my driveway to get the morning newspaper yesterday, my head was down as a measure of extra care to try to prevent a fall. I was thinking about how when I was young looking at a newly fallen field of snow made me think about how lovely a sight it was. That virgin white. Now, in my early sixties, all it made me think of was how many floaters I have in my aging eyes. Will I ever need cataract surgery, or will death find me first?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Photo note. The photo is of a woman named Katherine, who lived in the same apartment building as I did in Philadelphia. It was taken during a major storm in the aughts. She was a neat young woman who had just become a school teacher. I didn't know her very well, and like many in my small apartment building (a six-unit converted rowhouse) she moved into a better place after a few months, unlike me, a loser, who lived there for twenty years. When I first saw her shoveling I thought it was a kid helping out a mom or dad, she looked so small, but although Katherine was not very tall, she was no kid. </span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-82257507650468066342021-01-30T16:53:00.001-05:002021-01-30T16:53:45.373-05:00If only I had done this<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ues9xua5vPlg5ResBr6TfgnZwAciHQtPl-QItFOscuQJjl-5KL0wLArIv5Wv6djYWC-DwBqqi4uG3cCXIs3bUrVKCQM6d99DRkq4EhGHZ7cB-HqgThqNKBfEtxocFnxbwPJ8fILkQmph/s2048/P1070190.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ues9xua5vPlg5ResBr6TfgnZwAciHQtPl-QItFOscuQJjl-5KL0wLArIv5Wv6djYWC-DwBqqi4uG3cCXIs3bUrVKCQM6d99DRkq4EhGHZ7cB-HqgThqNKBfEtxocFnxbwPJ8fILkQmph/w640-h480/P1070190.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />A radio show I was listening to recently about self awareness featured an expert on the topic who said that while most people think they're degree of self awareness is high, the reality is that just ten to fifteen percent of us are, no matter how old you are. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Two things she advised that I wish I'd known and done when I was twenty-two instead of sixty-two:</span></span></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">When things go badly, don't ask yourself why they went badly. <b>Why</b> questions seldom get honest answers and harm well being. Ask <b>what</b> questions, followed by how questions. That is, instead of saying, "<b>Why</b> didn't that person want to see me again?" or "<b>Why</b> didn't I get that job?" ask "<b>What</b> went well on that date? <b>What</b> didn't?" and "<b>What</b> did I do well on that interview?" followed by "<b>How</b> can I do better the next time?"</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Have a <b>Dinner of Truth</b> with a friend and ask them, "What do I do that annoys you most?" Choose honest friends, not ones who tell you you look great when you know you don't. No matter what they say, you answer must be, "Thank you. Tell me more."</span></span></li></ol><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The only thing I'd dispute is that age is irrelevant, especially regarding the second one. Over the years, enough people have told me of the social blunders I've committed that I have learned. But I get depressed by how long it took me to absorb their lessons and how many of them I could have learned and rectified by the time I was twenty-five instead of fifty.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-36542647880557730242021-01-07T13:07:00.001-05:002021-01-07T13:07:11.998-05:00The distraught friend<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> I got home from grocery shopping yesterday as the news of the January 6 attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C., was breaking. Not long after I got home, a friend called. Like me, she doesn't have cable. Unlike me, she was watching CNN feed online. Also unlike me, she had worked herself into a frenzy about what she was seeing. <br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4_liiiX8IMsEmNyslQq7Gap6nUY0T0_3dk7MWghHuVj9Qzq_T_nmgpKFkFbYByai2ZT97CU7z39FQDp-1K7hKQ64Kn74GJ4yJdSgLBWxjSY20BDVST6n61acwplaDvg76tsoN3TY5ik-H/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="680" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4_liiiX8IMsEmNyslQq7Gap6nUY0T0_3dk7MWghHuVj9Qzq_T_nmgpKFkFbYByai2ZT97CU7z39FQDp-1K7hKQ64Kn74GJ4yJdSgLBWxjSY20BDVST6n61acwplaDvg76tsoN3TY5ik-H/" width="240" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br />Sample dialog:</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My friend: Oh look! There's another of those assholes wearing a tri-corner hat!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Me: You know, not that I'd ever wear one, but those are pretty cool hats. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It went on for several minutes like that. I was unable to match her anger and level of agitation and not about to pretend to do so. I've never been like that, even when I was college age. It's not that I don't care, I do. I've missed voting just once in my life since 1976 and that was because I was living overseas. (It would've been hard to vote as I'd left the state I'd lived in for good and hadn't moved into another one. Also, it was obvious that the election would be one-sided: George H.W. Bush vs. Micheal Dukakis.) I've donated to politicians I'm in favor of, though not a lot as I really don't think it should be about money, though it is.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have a few friends who need to disengage from the media flow more often than they do. They need to ask themselves what good it does for them to get as upset as they do. The friend who called me yesterday, for example, has a bad heart that had her hospitalized for two weeks a year ago and it's still not great. She lives alone and hasn't left her apartment since March of last year due to her concerns over the virus. Why do people let themselves thrive on anger? It's as bad for the psyche as spending hours a day watching pornography is for sexual concepts and feelings, or gambling is for managing personal finances. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyccqueDld9IN66Pd18BnDggL1KzCkOyiwnXYOnJ8gFZu2dI18I9HB4qxfUj-QectJYybfLydoKAdHNrKVll1MDBl75Adn-Pq_5TZnHjiVIMKHD1XkCH-z1jGgzOWBVU8dmbiucfnePRJ3/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="1416" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyccqueDld9IN66Pd18BnDggL1KzCkOyiwnXYOnJ8gFZu2dI18I9HB4qxfUj-QectJYybfLydoKAdHNrKVll1MDBl75Adn-Pq_5TZnHjiVIMKHD1XkCH-z1jGgzOWBVU8dmbiucfnePRJ3/" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You have a choice when it comes to how much time you spend engaging with current events. Too little is bad, but so is too much. There is more of value in the world other than knowing what's going on, and I say this having been a journalist at one time. Find an old book, a novel, and read it. It doesn't have to be some dumb escapist book, though it can be. Just something about a different place or time than our own, something that transports you from now and here. Turn your stupid phone off and put it in a drawer or a room where you won't see it, and vow not to look at it for at least an hour. You'll live, I promise. And if you doze off while reading in a comfortable chair, great!<br /></span></span></p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-2944761115133337242020-12-31T18:06:00.002-05:002020-12-31T18:06:53.104-05:00Dead cousin<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> A first cousin of mine died a couple days ago. No, no—don't cry for me. Cry for him. We weren't close and we grew up in different states. I didn't know him well. He seemed like a good man, though, and I think we might be our immediate family's equivalents in some ways. We're both the youngest, neither of us married or had kids, neither of us had notable career success. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">He kept his childhood name, with the diminutive suffix. I admire men who do that. I fought hard to get rid of the "y" after my name largely due to insecurity when I was in my early teens. The uncle I was named after kept his until his death in his late eighties. That wouldn't have been a problem for me if I, like him, had been a fighter pilot in two wars (WWII, Korea) and later, a company president. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">When my cousin and his father stopped by on their way elsewhere some time in, I think, 1963, he drew on our bellies with a marker and took a photograph of us as we bathed. My cousin is on the right. This was a far more innocent time than our own and this photo had been framed and put in, appropriately, one of our bathrooms, where it stayed for many years. It is, for the record, the only photo of me <i>sans</i> clothes anywhere. As far as I know.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hhmb6NEysrQnROFghssRQ8vbgEwP2PrxV32SgoG-UmpzzF8Huwd-VKRD7m4JOxUa7vVA6U3A1pitDoEdz9CWMr5diAr-9vfeWYKECHgwN3TMdos5A97werpctLD6niLC8H6Yg6MuGWPO/s2048/Willie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1424" data-original-width="2048" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hhmb6NEysrQnROFghssRQ8vbgEwP2PrxV32SgoG-UmpzzF8Huwd-VKRD7m4JOxUa7vVA6U3A1pitDoEdz9CWMr5diAr-9vfeWYKECHgwN3TMdos5A97werpctLD6niLC8H6Yg6MuGWPO/w400-h278/Willie.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-41587514679056985322020-12-16T15:16:00.002-05:002020-12-16T15:16:41.677-05:00How to drive in the snow<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFw9XqAaYye8TVD4HM4ODc-0FMTTdmfyHiPhRxN_xXYzjilmkLhuoF6ZfTd9EYkdiV49JXax3XSm0e6U35AuHLgLtRHEnsy9P9-ynnnl9bU9vT2AO4VIkpcu4ARvZt-3MCgOLuTN4Th8bJ/s2000/jonsnow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFw9XqAaYye8TVD4HM4ODc-0FMTTdmfyHiPhRxN_xXYzjilmkLhuoF6ZfTd9EYkdiV49JXax3XSm0e6U35AuHLgLtRHEnsy9P9-ynnnl9bU9vT2AO4VIkpcu4ARvZt-3MCgOLuTN4Th8bJ/w400-h225/jonsnow.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">The best way to drive in snow? Don't. It's snowing here in my region—Southeastern Pennsylvania—and I seen two neighbors go out to grocery shop. The snow has been predicted for days and everyone's had plenty of time to stock up on things that in these pandemic times they probably already had.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Why do people do this? The short answer is because they're human. The longer answer is because they want to show defiance in the face of adversity, an ennobling characteristic. Fine with me, but remember: all you're doing is driving an SUV a mile through half an inch of snow, getting salt in the undercarriage of your vehicle and increasing the likelihood that you'll be in a fender bender. <br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-88623903993791161652020-12-12T17:24:00.001-05:002020-12-13T10:57:01.596-05:00Watching Alex Trebek<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I watched <i>Jeopardy!</i> faithfully for years, often not missing an episode for many months at a time. For a couple of years in the mid aughts I'd post the <i>Final Jeopardy!</i> clue in the Rants & </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEi75lNKK06nUFELy4bd7Hs9VurNQCUORwamQc2DkP2i0PQzbXueXRiw4GC0Ll4ztbWcI7cfI5I7UT-PfjatNtXiIAPGenJ8Xhycju16FonzGpslTY1G_bzggpeT7aqyPWyhUaGEDla0nl/s860/alex-trebek-860x484.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="860" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEi75lNKK06nUFELy4bd7Hs9VurNQCUORwamQc2DkP2i0PQzbXueXRiw4GC0Ll4ztbWcI7cfI5I7UT-PfjatNtXiIAPGenJ8Xhycju16FonzGpslTY1G_bzggpeT7aqyPWyhUaGEDla0nl/w400-h225/alex-trebek-860x484.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Raves section of Craigslist, when that section was a lively, pre-social media venue for anonymous posts. I'd have the answer on top and the reader would have to scroll down far to see the question, so they could try to answer it themselves. People would write to thank me for doing this. Once, someone politely requested that I also post who won, the current champion or someone else, so I added that to the bottom. At the time, Craigslist would let you post in more than one city, so I posted in my own, which is Philadelphia, and New York. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">When television went digital in 2009 I got a government-issued voucher which enabled me to buy a converter so I could watch on my aging television set. It worked fine until one day while watching something the little green light that indicated it was on faded out. It reminded me of robots dying in science fiction movies. Although streaming wasn't a thing yet, I didn't bother replacing the converter or my television. It's best to read more, and there was always the internet and radio for current news and Netflix discs for movies. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I moved and now have a working television but I don't have cable and the aerial reception is iffy so I rarely turn on the television unless I'm streaming movies and shows from Amazon Prime or Netflix. I was long out of the habit of watching <i>Jeopardy!</i> but I began watching it again after learning of the death of the show's host Alex Trebek, of pancreatic cancer November 8, 2020. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I liked him. I'm old and fussy about language. (If you say you "could care less" about something, I will tell you that you've just said the opposite of what you meant to.) I liked that Alex pronounced words correctly, words like "sophomore." He'd make it a three-syllable word. I read that young people are amused at the way he pronounced "genre," but he says it the way I do, with the "g" like the second g in "garage." He and I also say "houzes" instead of "housses" for the plural of "house." I don't mind that language changes over time, but it's better when it changes to make it more efficient opposed to changes due to ignorance. "All right," for example, should be spelled "alright," as with "almost" and a few other words like it, and "alright" is becoming accepted now. The same goes for the use of "hopefully." </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Watching the show airing since Trebek's death is at times heart-wrenching. Just last week, for example, he said, brightly, "Can you believe it's just two weeks until Christmas?" When you hear that now, you hear hope in his voice. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, I know some will say it's hard to feel too sorry for someone who made millions of dollars a year doing a job he loved and dying at eighty, but when you see a person directly and they're not doing something evil, you can't help feeling for them, at least a little. A thing I read about the final shows he did that makes watching them hard for me is that he'd said in the last weeks of them waves of pain would hit him, going from level two to ten, and he had to struggle to keep himself functioning. (Chemo hurts a lot.) I watch him in these final episodes, knowing from personal experience that duty can sometimes trump discomfort, and wonder whether he was feeling pain at that moment.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-2619739297330726542020-12-01T23:08:00.005-05:002020-12-01T23:08:22.987-05:00Changes<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCEq1-GUE_whUcB1zwlPCDiouitzecY-OFRHEh2DOlVBlj84MUBjqjrwNpXxqbn1_p6QuILXAX_EVX0GGafr9ATGGNyCdYo5tClMwLjydFonF33XPd9bTn-YSMeysmb1So4s6BV3gsu56/s2048/DoorHandle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCEq1-GUE_whUcB1zwlPCDiouitzecY-OFRHEh2DOlVBlj84MUBjqjrwNpXxqbn1_p6QuILXAX_EVX0GGafr9ATGGNyCdYo5tClMwLjydFonF33XPd9bTn-YSMeysmb1So4s6BV3gsu56/w640-h480/DoorHandle.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">There will be volumes written over the coming decades about the long-term changes the COVID-19 pandemic has caused. I don't know of any left over from the Spanish Flu of 1918. Some might say laws against spitting were made then, but those existed already because of tuberculosis, and were tightened up then. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe in twenty years other things will have eclipsed the pandemic to such a degree that it'll be forgotten. World War II is probably much of the reason the 1918 flu faded in memory. In five years someone will see a public bathroom door handle like the one in the picture above and have to turn some memory gears to recall why it was put there and when, and maybe wonder if it wasn't put there before or after unrelated to the pandemic.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596137581377858218.post-42045593779704402062020-11-11T20:41:00.000-05:002020-11-11T20:41:11.921-05:00The Biden win<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <br /><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHW9y_LIRENMj0aw5ABpYTiD6oacVi3wrFngYZDYXE4Fbh8llD3VQb3GUZ1D97za90OuKCg-XyxHrKuwjD_IIWEzRcMhB8N0iTuzdSklP1CcE42KI_aY4ojrg_Bj6uPwby3XiNg2-QgMT/s2048/VoteCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHW9y_LIRENMj0aw5ABpYTiD6oacVi3wrFngYZDYXE4Fbh8llD3VQb3GUZ1D97za90OuKCg-XyxHrKuwjD_IIWEzRcMhB8N0iTuzdSklP1CcE42KI_aY4ojrg_Bj6uPwby3XiNg2-QgMT/w640-h480/VoteCount.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the warm Saturday afternoon of November 7, I crossed the street I live on to sit in a neighbor's front yard and join them and another neighbor to celebrate the announcement that morning of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's winning the 2020 election, which had been held four days before. I suggested the gathering, saying I had found a bottle of champagne in the back of my refrigerator I didn't know I had. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDKVW2i_KtcKNI_UtTDFiNerF_07AohaLInN8ly9WdJbL_bI_JWRh2DO7j-GezSFAz-16L8AxYPLZFPs4QXN1NCWJFjpic64663VFFaEI-gKU15Gwwz_NEUGCUiXsRwrIznZyBhinbsWAU/s2048/DemDog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDKVW2i_KtcKNI_UtTDFiNerF_07AohaLInN8ly9WdJbL_bI_JWRh2DO7j-GezSFAz-16L8AxYPLZFPs4QXN1NCWJFjpic64663VFFaEI-gKU15Gwwz_NEUGCUiXsRwrIznZyBhinbsWAU/s320/DemDog.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The champagne had been bought and put there by my parents, who had been friends of all three. My parents died in 2011, and the last two or three years of their lives were such that I doubt they'd bought the champagne after 2008. It was bottled in 1982, the year they moved into the suburban Philadelphia house I began living in after they died and remain in now, with my own demise probably not far off. I doubt it had been bought then, though.<br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2CVM3fr2ZGVQ7UNzmLoXcAdKRDJErj20gblSInAM2PEtLkDIbUGt_X2shaCs2-9d-BAM0R1pMzdjkQFw72VEFWggxsgwwkFEc_lrtfJHV48GWDBeVQYqjeoH2nZvz5ccZdZFZMpxs5Z6/s813/Inky.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="389" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2CVM3fr2ZGVQ7UNzmLoXcAdKRDJErj20gblSInAM2PEtLkDIbUGt_X2shaCs2-9d-BAM0R1pMzdjkQFw72VEFWggxsgwwkFEc_lrtfJHV48GWDBeVQYqjeoH2nZvz5ccZdZFZMpxs5Z6/w191-h400/Inky.jpeg" width="191" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">This November has been unseasonably warm for this region. It's the first November in thirty years to have temperatures of over seventy degrees for five consecutive days. One neighbor, whose husband died earlier this year, brought large hard pretzels over. She doesn't eat them, she said, but has them for when her sons and grandchildren visit. The hosting neighbors had champagne glasses they'd gotten as a wedding present over thirty years ago and have used no more than twice since. We sat and talked about the election and other things as the sun set and birds and a bat flitted around us, all preparing for the night in different ways.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">I know little about alcohol even though I worked for a time in a liquor manufacturing plant in Minneapolis. The bottle had been stored on its side. Opening a champagne bottle is one of those adult things I've never done, so I wanted to open this one. I was told to loosen the little cage holding the cork in and then to pry it up with my thumbs while making sure the bottle was pointed away from anyone. I pried. The cork broke. A corkscrew was provided and I managed to get it out.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The champagne still had some fizz but not much. I don't think I've had champagne for nearly three decades, if that, but the neighbors told me it tasted as it should. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Later, I thought about how appropriate that bottle had been in relation to what was being celebrated. A broken cork, a delayed opening, no exciting explosion or geyser once it was opened. Biden's win was not an exiting event and was exhilarating not because of what was coming in, but what was going out. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoHeQdERVfBnf3YT6pOE0MAW9b3brex1t7iiHDLvo7oWqMYDALH1XN4w7pOUGLtMaxZiO-00DLHNpIVdUUwEnqDbN8DHvpJi9n4mpe_CYCgh7JrMe-QO-IR1Phh6P2A19hsElVgpOtH2Q/s2048/Cork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoHeQdERVfBnf3YT6pOE0MAW9b3brex1t7iiHDLvo7oWqMYDALH1XN4w7pOUGLtMaxZiO-00DLHNpIVdUUwEnqDbN8DHvpJi9n4mpe_CYCgh7JrMe-QO-IR1Phh6P2A19hsElVgpOtH2Q/w400-h300/Cork.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">A few houses down, someone played loud music. In the suburb I'm in, that counts for wild. I'd gone to Philadelphia on Friday, November 6, for a doctor's appointment. Afterward, I went to the Pennsylvania Convention Center to witness what was going on around it as workers inside counted votes. Trump supporters—old, white, fat, dour—clustered behind a thick police line as Biden supporters—young, and racially diverse—danced in the streets. I took the first two pictures above.<br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2