Week five

I was going to call this post, "Week five and still alive," but I thought it might be too morbid and it would force me into a challenge of finding something to rhyme each week. Week six, I pick up sticks sounds stupid. Though I did spend lots of time Sunday cutting out a dead Rhodie on my wild hillside and picking up sticks. 

It was Easter weekend and other than having to work for five hours Saturday morning, it was a fairly normal Easter (given the circumstances). We ordered take out from a greasy bar food type of place on Friday night and learned a lesson as to why you don't order take out bar food during a pandemic (or any time for that matter). By the time we got it home, it was pretty cold and fried food loses its appeal once it reaches room temperature.

I am still walking about three times a day. And I still struggle to find a good mask that doesn't cut off oxygen or pull my ears off. Since I don't go in many stores anyway, a mask seems pointless most of the time. 

I made the mistake of reading a New York Times article about the top ten symptoms of you having the COVID-19 virus other than fever and dry cough. Pretty much it read like the side effects list from most prescriptions and I am sure fueled the paranoia most people feel already about anything out of the ordinary about your body. I question the wisdom of publishing such an article. It just seems to panic more than inform. But there seems to be a lot of this going on.

My wife and I were out walking and stopped at a Gelato shop that is apparently an essential business because they are still open. We purchased a pint of gelato for my son and I noted the girl scooping out gelato didn't have gloves or a mask. She exchanged pleasantries with us as I paid and we walked home. Later that afternoon I took my daughter for a walk and we returned to the same gelato shop. The same girl was working. She didn't recall selling me a pint of gelato about an hour earlier and she exchanged the exact same pleasantries. She still wasn't wearing gloves or a mask.

So I am still invisible, pandemic or no pandemic. Some things never change.

Social distancing down the bunny trail

I was tempted to post an image of Jesus on the cross wearing a face mask, but I figured that might be too much for any nut job that wandered in here by mistake. It has been quite awhile since I had any trolls flame me, but I'm just not in the mood. 

I have stated unequivocally stated on many occasions that I am not a religious person and do not believe in a god. The current pandemic has confirmed my disbelief in one. I have considered the current state a wake up call from nature that we haven't heeded any other signs including global warming, hurricanes, tornadoes or Donald Trump so maybe we'll pay attention to a killer virus.

Though I can't help believe that once this has more or less passed, people will talk big about how they've changed, then shrug and get back to mass consumption and ignoring their neighbors. Even pandemics don't seem to be able to change most people's inherent natures.

We plan to dye Easter eggs on Saturday and try to keep some semblance of normalcy for the kids. They are past the age where they want to attend mass Easter egg hunts and get their photos taken with the Easter Bunny anyway. And not being church going people, not being able to go to a Sunday service has absolutely no impact on us. 

I remember the congregation at church when I was a kid singing, "Every day will be an Easter" (a Christian Scientist hymn) and thinking if every day was an Easter we'd get sick of all the candy. I'm not sure that's what the author intended, but it was basically what Easter meant to me, dyeing Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. These days I don't even eat chocolate so dyeing eggs will be the highlight.

Other than walks, I don't really go out anymore. I went with my wife to the grocery store last weekend and got stressed out by all the people going the wrong way in one way aisles that I agreed to stop going.  My wife reminds me that I am over 60 and take medication for high blood pressure so I shouldn't be taking any chances. I even broke my tooth on an unpopped popcorn kernel the other night and chose to forgo a dentist visit until late in May just to avoid the risk of going to downtown Seattle. Fortunately the tooth was a crown and doesn't hurt.

How does that relate to Easter? Well I broke a crown and Jesus wore a crown of thorns. 

Thought you had me there, didn't you? 

Masked man

There has been a lot of debate lately about whether or not a face mask can help protect you from the COVID-19 virus and that the whoop de do filtered masks should be reserved for medical staff. Most of it is a moot point because, like toilet paper, most of the masks were swooped up early in the frenzy. You can order disposable masks on Amazon, but they all seem to come from China and won't arrive for a month and a half. Plus they are the ones that only filter out dust and pollen anyway.

So the do it yourself versions have become popular. Most are fashioned from bandanas and people basically look like they are going to rob a train or bank. fortunately very few trains are running and no banks are open so there haven't been any misunderstandings that I know of. 

The first mask I wore in public was a prop from a surgeon costume I'd worn in a skit at work many years ago (don't ask). It seemed like a legitimate enough mask, but I think it is actually made of paper that looks like cloth, so I don't think it will make it through many washings. Next I just tied an old Seahawks bandana around my face cowboy style. Works in a pinch, but it kept sliding off my nose, so not sure how much good it does.

I tried another mask using a method from the web where you fold the bandana around hair ties that slip over your ears and keep the mask over your face. The hair ties unfortunately folded my ears down and made me look like something out of Lord of the Rings. And they kept popping off. So I finally just found some cotton fabric with a pirate print and hand sewed cloth ties onto. The result is a crude but effective face mask. By effective, I mean it covers my nose and mouth and, if nothing else, keeps me from sneezing and coughing on people. 

Not that I have been within six feet from anyone but my wife and kids for weeks. I have ventured to the store with my wife a few times and it is almost comical to see people try and stay distant from each other while trying to find canned goods. Our store even created one-way aisles (that most people ignore) to keep people from trying pass each other in the tight space.  But Americans can't seem to self regulate. Just as people ignore speed limits and don't use blinkers, we encounter people who just push up the wrong way in the grocery aisles and seem oblivious to the six-foot rule. I want to get a t-shirt made that reads, "Better six feet away than six feet under." But someone would probably take it the wrong way.

I think having a sense of humor during these times puts me in the higher risk category.

If it is Tuesday this must be my blog

My daughter thought Monday was Sunday. Because you start to lose track of time when you sleep, work and live in the same place for 24/7. Even going for a walk starts to look the same. Though we have started thinking about writing to the local online newspaper and suggesting some common rules for walking in the time of social distancing. For example, if everyone walked on the right, you wouldn't have to step into the road so much. And a single person should yield to two or more people. Simple things.

I have found that working at home has a psychological impact on you as well. Because even on weekends, you are in the place that you work and it is hard to leave it behind. I try and spend most of my time during a work day, down in my home office. And I avoid going there on weekends, but it still has an effect on me.

The longer this stretches on the more I see the effects of stress on my family and the people I work with. Part of it is not knowing when it will end. Part of it is not knowing what will happen when it ends. It is hard at this point to imagine things returning to normal. You start to appreciate all of the things you took for granted, like going to a movie, eating out and not having to swerve around people when you are walking.

It is interesting how quickly marketing people have switched gears to capitalize on this mess. I get e-mails from online merchants selling home office furniture. I get fed online videos about buying toilet paper online. It is almost shameless the way we take advantage of even the worst circumstances.

I don't really worry about getting sick. Though I am hyper aware of even the slightest symptom. The actual virus still feels remote and vague like the bogeyman. I am more worried about my family, my job and the economy. I actually would like to retire sometime. What are the odds when I had retirement in sight, we'd experience the worst disaster in my lifetime.

You can't as an individual prepare for something like this. The only ones who do are nut job dooms day preppers. They must be loving this. 

In the beginning of this forced isolation, I saw lots of positive things in people. Although we needed to stay six feet apart, I noticed people seemed friendlier than they used to be when you walked past them. They said hello or waved. Now people just seem stressed and confused. 

And stressed and confused people start doing weird things. Today, they had to pull one of our light rail trains out of service because a guy was observed coughing in paper towels and wiping them on seats. It didn't surprise me. And I've noticed more vandalism and litter lately. While walking today we saw someone had tossed a pizza box from a restaurant up the street into some persons yard. We have also noticed people picking up after their dog and then tossing the bag down the slope behind our house.

I hope this is some of the worst of it. God knows what people will do if this drags on for months.

Remote control

Just wrapping up the first full week of working at home. On the plus side I get to roll out of bed 15 minutes before 8 a.m. and head down to my home office. I used to have to get up at 6 a.m., get ready and then take a train into work.

On the negative side I'm not taking as many showers.

I think I'm actually able to be as, if not more, productive working at home. Meeting with people via computer video and audio actually makes me feel more connected to them than I would be in a conference room. It is oddly comforting to meet with other people trapped in their homes without outside contact.

Since I don't have access to a gym (and they are all closed anyway), I've been taking several walks a day with my wife and sometimes my son and dog. Lots more people are out walking. Some acknowledge us as we walk past. Some cross the street. All of us have gotten used to staying six feet away.

I was walking alone yesterday at lunch. I passed a guy checking his mail box and he hollered out, "Good job of keeping six feet away." I nodded. Then he laughed and said, "We need to make light of it." I mumbled, a "Yeah." He seemed uncomfortable at that point and told me to have a nice day.

I was tempted to say, "Better six feet away then six feet under." But humor is definitely not going over big these days. People don't want jokes. They want reassurance that it will all be okay. No one seems to be able to offer that.

I did watch several online video ads this morning for buying toilet paper online. Not sure with all of the essentials you could hoard, toilet paper became the one many obsessed on. And as far as I know, the virus doesn't make you go to the bathroom more.

Not sure why Washington was so hard hit by this. Not even sure what hard hit means in the context of the virus. You don't really see anything but closed stores and restaurants. All we hear is how bad it could get if we don't "shelter in place." But shelter in place really means you can still go out walking, go to grocery store and run other errands.  So I'm not sure how it is any different than what we were doing anyway.

I am sick of the phrase, "This is the new normal."

No, no it is not. Not for me anyway.

I miss normal

So the governor of Washington issued a mandatory social distancing order. And my work is requiring us to work at home. They also closed most of the schools in the area. Today they closed restaurants and bars.

Our cats and the dog are confused as to what I am doing home. They generally just associate me with someone who comes home and feeds them.

Honestly, I don't have a problem avoiding large groups of people. I have tried doing that my entire life. I don't like the potential of not being able to go out to a restaurant. I am also worried about the long term impacts on the economy and my retirement, not to mention my kid's education if this drags on for months.

Oddly enough, I am less concerned about the actual virus. There is so much misinformation about how you get it and how badly you can get sick that it seems secondary to the impacts of group panic and fear. I was disappointed in the decision to close restaurants because I was in the camp that of all the industries, they were the ones that were supposed to be following sanitary rules already when they prep food. But I can understand the concerns of large groups of people squeezed into small spaces spreading germs.

We had our last restaurant meal on Friday night and it did cross my mind that there could be more risks as the servers and assistants kept grabbing our water glasses and refilling them. And after I used the oil and balsamic vinegar cruets I sanitized my hands.

I feel for all of those workers suddenly without paychecks potentially for weeks. Not sure when or how all of the emergency funds to help the people and the economy can kick in. Especially since most of the government workers are working remotely, too.

My wife and I drove to Olympia on Sunday to set up a computer for my mother in law so she could work at home. We ended up going to several stores looking for computer cables. There still seemed to be plenty of people going about their business as if nothing was up.

I sanitized my hands frequently and I used a rubber glove when I put gas in the car.

I miss normal.

In a fog...no, really

There's a fog upon L.A.
And my friends have lost their way
We'll be over soon they said
Now they've lost themselves instead

--Blue Jay Way by George Harrison 

Actually there is a fog upon downtown Seattle. And I'm not referring to the Corona Virus. It is a real fog and fairly thick for Seattle. It kind of adds to the surreal mood in the city. The streets are pretty much empty. The train I rode in on this morning was fairly empty, too. People are staying home in droves clutching hand sanitizer and peering out the blinds.

It is pretty cold today, too. Not very spring like. And daylight savings time springing us forward over the weekend didn't help lighten things up. The only thing bright about the morning was the full moon peaking through the fog.

The fog has now burned off and it is sunny with barely a cloud in the sky. It is hard to believe that behind all of this tranquility the world is doing its best Chicken Little impression and squawking about mandatory social distancing.

As I worked out, I watched the image of a cruise ship pulling into Oakland with a boat load of passengers who had been exposed to the Corona Virus. All that I could think was who in their right mind would be taking a cruise right now. But I quickly remembered that you book sometimes a year or two in advance and pay vast quantities of money to go on a cruise. What an unlucky bastard to have booked one in the middle of a pandemic and didn't buy cancellation insurance.

"Marge, pack your bags for the cruise."
"But what about the Corona Virus?"
"I can't get a refund so we are going. Just have some extra shrimp in the buffet. We'll probably get food poisoning before we get the Corona Virus. Or we'll just get sick from drinking too many Corona's."

At least that is how I imagine the conversations went before jumping on a cruise ship.

Blog in the time of cholera

“wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.” 

― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

My apologies to Gabriel García Márquez for re-purposing her great book title.  But the title has been going through my head in these troubled times of panic and misinformation in the face of a virus that doesn't seem to move as quickly as the panic it inspires.

They tell us that the people who are most at risk are:

• Over 60 years of age 
• Have underlying health conditions including include heart disease, lung disease, or diabetes 
• Have weakened immune systems 
• Pregnant

So, being over 60, I am technically at risk. So my company tells me I may work from my home if I choose. But I am torn. I don't feel compelled to cower at home in a self-imposed exile from an invisible bug that could or could not make me sick and in extreme cases kill me. Most of the prescriptions I take come with a list of potential side effects that make the Corona Virus look like a pansy in comparison.

Again it is the panic that frustrates me more than anything. Because the only difference between today and two weeks ago is that several people died in a senior care center not even in Seattle. All of a sudden, we became ground zero for the virus in the United States. But nothing really changed other than people began making runs on stores and hoarding hand sanitizer and toilet paper. It once again confirms for me the power of people's perceptions versus the reality.

I walked on the beach with my daughter last Sunday and noted that it was an ordinary activity untouched by the madness swirling around the virus outbreak. It occurred to me that nature doesn't panic or over react. It evolves and adapts...slowly, but surely.

Pity that humans can't take the same approach. But we seem to be hard wired for fight or flight. And so many of the things that we react to now are imagined or potential versus real and concrete.  

Don't pandemic!

I would say that the world has officially gone crazy. And it is the "nothing to fear but fear itself" that Franklin Delano Roosevelt counseled us about that is driving people crazy. The Corona virus that is spooking people to make runs on the grocery store and stock up on toilet paper is the boogeyman. It also caused the stock market to tank big time.

Once again I marvel at what sheep people are. Or lemmings. It is their panic that is more harmful than the spread of a flu like disease that can kill already sick people. I'm not poo-poohing the fact that it is concerning. But the misinformation about it is mindnumbing. People are told that wearing face masks is useless yet they have cleared the stores of face masks.

And now we are letting our lives grind to a halt as we wring our hands and wait. But wait for what? I don't want hunker down too afraid to peek outside my windows for fear I'll see someone cough. They have us all washing our hands constantly like Lady Macbeth.

It's an OCD person's dream come true.

I hate things that take me out of my nice, comfortable routines. I just want to worry about paying for my kid's college and retirement. I don't want to be sucked into the nightmare of global panic because of a cold on steroids.

The thing is, a year from now most of this will be forgotten and people will go right back to not washing their hands and touching their faces. Let's just hope that worse virus that infected the Whitehouse four years ago is gone.

Worth the weight

Eight years ago I wrote about my efforts to lose weight. Back in 2009 I lost 52 pounds. Four years later I'd regained 20 pounds so I upped my game and lost those 20 pounds. But by last November I realized I'd pretty much regained 40 pounds. So I went into diet and exercise mode. So far I have lost 26 pounds.

The difference in my efforts this time is that I use a couple of free apps (that beg me to pay for premium and lots of features that I don't care about). One app, myfitnesspal, allows me to log everything I eat and drink and my exercise. It tracks calories I take in and calories I burn. And it tracks my weight.

The other app, mapmywalk, helps me track how far I walk and how many calories I burn on weekends. Both apps, combined with weekly weigh ins, keep me from deluding myself about progress.

The pounds aren't magically burning off, but they are slowly dropping. All the experts say that is the way to shed pounds and not quickly gain them back. Although I have dropped 26 pounds and notice the difference, no one else has. But then again, no one noticed when I fell and broke my nose and had a black eye, either.

Regardless, there is a certain satisfaction I get by losing weight. I feel more in control and better about myself. There is a rush you get when you step on a scale and see a smaller number than the week before. And it is nice to have clothing feel loose on my body. I can even fit in the jeans I've held onto for several years.

Although losing weight is beneficial to my body, I do it more for the impact on my mind. During the years when I grow lax and start gaining weight and being less than mindful of what I eat, I feel bad about myself. I feel weak and guilty.

The weird thing about this time is that I don't really feel deprived of anything. I don't miss the snacks that my co-workers seem to constantly consume. Logging what I eat makes me aware of what I am eating. Upping my workouts during the week have increased my endurance. Walking more on weekends also helps my mental state and given me more time with my wife and son who sometimes walk with me.

I'm kind of unclear on my actual target weight. I'm shoot for at least losing another 20 pounds. And then instead of telling myself I can ease off, I'm going to keep monitoring what I eat and how much I exercise. My goal is to keep the weight off. And what I've discovered about myself, it is mainly a state of mind that helps me lose weight. So I just need to keep that state of mind focused on keeping the weigh off.

Restart

One of the challenges of being a geriatric parent of school aged children is dealing with their homework. Since my wife is a teacher by profession, she handles most of the math questions. I tend to be relegated to just trying to motivate my children to do their homework. My daughter isn't really a problem. She takes it upon herself to start and finish her homework. And she rarely asks me for help except the definition of a new word or two.

My son is another story.

My son isn't a big fan of school. He takes the position that, if the work they give him to do is pointless, it is pointless to do it. I've tried explaining the need to develop skills that help you learn the things you care about, but he isn't really buying it. And part of me kind of admires his willingness to call bull shit on some of the assignments they give.

The latest one was to read a book and instead of just doing a book report write papers and develop materials as if you were turning the book into a movie. Now to me, it actually sounds kind of fun although it is a bit too much like the work I do with ad agencies producing video spots. But my son doesn't think it is fun. After much prodding and poking we got him to do some of the written assignments. But he refused to follow the examples the teacher provided for writing a letter of inquiry to an actor to play the lead role in the movie or other letters to production companies to produce the movie.

For whatever reason, my son is a free range writer. He doesn't use capital letters, punctuation or paragraphs. He just writes stream of consciousness much the way James Joyce is famous for. Having a degree in journalism and spending many years as a copy writer and editor, this drives me crazy. It also drives the teachers crazy. After arguing with him for an unreasonable amount of time he allowed me to edit one of the documents. Then he was outraged that I tweaked some of his sentences in some places to eek out what I thought he was trying to say.

Do you still write?

I had lunch early this week with a couple of old friends. I hadn't seen them in quite awhile. And I'm afraid I monopolized the conversation about what was going on in my life. At one point one of them asked, "Do you still write?"

My response was that I have been writing a blog for 16 years. The response was kind of a blank stare and some comments about not being able to keep up with blogs.

I suppose a better question would be, "Do you still write anything anyone reads?" And I could have honestly responded, "Of course not."

Truth is, no one "keeps up with blogs" these days. It is a challenging medium. It does require a commitment from readers to check in every now and then because a blog isn't typically spoon fed to everyone. It also takes a commitment from the blogger to produce interesting content on a regular basis that appeals to your readers.

I've failed miserably on that front. The problem with not pandering to a regular audience is that you pander to yourself. And let's face it, people really don't want to read about me. They want something they can relate to.

I was better at it when I had regular readers and I knew their personalities...or at least their online personalities. I found myself crafting stuff I knew they would respond to. And they did.

Until they didn't.

I admit that most of what I write now is therapeutic. I try to keep the more personal, self pity stuff offline. But I come here now mainly to keep from getting rusty. I don't want to end up being the tin man frozen mid ax stroke next to an abandoned cabin somewhere over the rainbow.

Besides, there's no place like Dizgraceland.

Dreams of travelling

I tend to dream or be aware of my dreams an hour or so before Alexa starts blasting out chimes to wake me up. This morning I was dreaming about being stressed out trying to catch a flight that would simply have me fly to a destination and turn around and fly back.

I have quite a few dreams about having to pack quickly to make a travel connection. I few them as stress dreams. I rarely dream about laying on a beach sipping a tropical drink. And as with many of my dreams, I am in the house I grew up in. Or I am in this house that I've never been to but appears in my dreams a lot. It is a a series of connected rooms or houses. It kind of reminds me of New Orleans.

In another life, I would happily live in New Orleans and be an artist. I would not be a corporate suck up and ever have to hear about SMART goals or cascading goals. I would not receive "feedback" in performance reviews. I would not care about strategic priorities. I would not be judged by how well I conformed to corporate values.

But I digress.

The thing is that I am at the end of my career. I have maybe five years left in the work force (if they don't try and "ok boomer" me out earlier). I'd like to be having nice, peaceful dreams of unhurried environments, not rushing around trying to find my wallet or passport and catching a flight at the last minute. Those are stress dreams and I think I've worked long enough to get a break from stress dreams.

I know it is pointless at this juncture of my life to question my career choice, but I am having serious doubts about my job. I must have been subconsciously giving off some burn out vibe because I got blasted for body language and not paying attention at meetings. I don't think the "feedback" was particularly fair or accurate, but who does believe such things?

But it did shake my foundation of who I am and what I'm doing. I've always considered myself a "creative." And only about five percent of what I do in my job could be described as creative. I'll admit I don't like managing people. And from some of my "feedback," people aren't to keen on my managing.

Thing is, I've been working since I was 16 if you don't count mowing lawns and paper routes. I've spent the last 38 years pretty much doing different versions of the same thing in pretty much the same place. Every time I think I deserve some credit for time served I run into the reality that no one is irreplaceable.

If only I could dream myself away from it all.

Just gathering data

My first real job years ago (other than mowing lawns and delivering a weekly newspaper) was working at the public library, first shelving books and later working in circulation. I started working there when I was 16 years old. I think I worked there maybe five years. It wasn’t a great job. It didn’t pay much, but I reasoned that it was better than working in fast food or at a restaurant. In retrospect, I would have probably made more money working at a restaurant.

Shelving books was mindnumbingly boring. And I had to endure lectures from reference librarians (the elite of in the library hierarchy) about how books needed to breath so don’t just shove them in an already full shelf. I would nod and smile. Then I’d keep shoving the books in place once the librarian was out of sight.

When I graduated from high school and entered college, I started working as a circulation clerk. It was less boring, but it made me interact with the public. And although you’d imagine that people in a library would be a bit higher on the IQ food chain then elsewhere you would be wrong. I often dealt with people floating in the shallow end of the gene pool. And there were transients who came to the library to sleep and get out of the elements. And there were the perverts who roamed the stacks trying to look up women’s dresses.

You didn’t have to have any special qualifications to work in circulation. It didn’t require a library science degree. You just had to know how to type. Much of the time I either checked books out or checked books in. The best time was working in the circulation office and you could at least carry on a conversation with other circulation clerks.

Most people who worked in circulation did so because they just needed a job. Many were like Starbuck’s barista’s are today: wannabe artists, writers and actors. One of those was a Chicago transplant with a full ZZ-Top beard named Kelly McFadden. Kelly was a playwright trapped in a circulation clerks body. He was a new father and needed to support his family. And he was super cool.

Kelly and I quickly became friends even though he was in his 30s and I was probably 19 or 20 at the time. He shared his philosophy on life and having to deal with looney people with me. He’d come off the front desk after checking out long lines of people and say, “Tim, I’m just gathering data...just gathering data.”

I loved that phrase. Because Kelly was taking in all of the madness we experienced and storing it in his brain to be used in his writing. At the time, I fancied myself as a great novelist in the making, so I adopted Kelly’s attitude that no matter how mind boggling our experience was, it was stuff we could use in our writing.

The other thing Kelly did for me was introduce me to the music of Tom Waits. And to this day, I think Waits is an inspirational genius.

When I moved away from Boise to finish college in Seattle, I lost contact with Kelly. But I think about what he taught me to this day. And although I never ended up writing a novel, I’ve gathered and continue to gather a great deal of data. Much of it has been used in my blog.

So thanks Kelly. I hope you wrote a highly successful play and are profiting from all the data you gathered.

The father, the son and the holy ghost

I was always confused by the phrase, "holy ghost" as a kid. I couldn't get the image of Casper the friendly ghost out of my head. Coincidentally, Caspar was the name of one of the wise men or kings who stalked Jesus when he was born.

But I digress.

The disturbing image above is from a filter on Snapchat. There was another one that showed you what you would look like as an elderly person. But I didn't look much different, so I passed. I found this one creepy enough. Again, I can't get over how much I look like my great, great grandfather with a full beard. The spooky little kid me is just wrong. My eyes didn't look that hard when I was a boy. That came with age.

I don't really understand Snapchat or the whole filter thing. They are fun to mess with, but I don't get how people use the app as a social media tool. Why would you send a friend the above image?

But then again, I am a boomer and the mysteries of the younger generations are shrouded in a fog that will never lift in my aged brain.

Though I wonder what barriers were put up between generations before someone came up with Baby Boomers, Gen X-ers, Millennials and Gen Z-ers. I suppose it was just a battle of wills between old coots and young whippersnappers.

The thing that strikes me about the above photo is how much it looks like a portrait done in a photo studio back in the 1960s. Now that is an art that has died...fortunately.

And I do look like a holy ghost. Or at least a ghost.

The image haunts me anyway.

Let it go

There are certain topics I have struggled with letting go of over the years: the loss of followers of my blog, being invisible, not being funny and repeating myself. I've tried rationalizing. I've tried bargaining with myself. And I've tried going into denial. But the damned things keep rising up like the undead in an episode of the Walking Dead.

And speaking of the Walking Dead, don't you think after all of these years the zombies would have rotted away? They have been decomposing for years and there shouldn't be much left of them.

But I digress.

The thing that has been bugging me most lately is the lack of comments and the lack of readers period. I know I try and just write for myself, but occasionally having feedback used to motivate me if not inspire me.

The hardest part for me is that the people who used to read my blog and comment just seemed to stop without any indication of why. The Gen Z word for it is "ghosting." It's when you completely cut someone out of your life without warning or explanation. Normally it is used when you ghost someone you were dating. But it applies here.

The thing is, it leaves you without closure. Was it something I said or didn't say? Were they bored? Busy? Dealing with there own stuff? You see how easy it is to internalize stuff when people just disappear?

I realize that much of what I blog about lacks relevance to many of the people online. My demographic is Boomers and there doesn't seem to be many of them represented online anymore. The Millennials and Gen Z-ers just can't relate to a past middle aged white man with an odd sense of humor and a tendency to repeat himself about the past.

But it is the ten or so people who used to read my blog and leave these funny comments that I don't understand.

Oh, I know some people just got burned out on blogging and reading blogs. And social media came along and made it easier to engage without too much effort. Plus attention spans have shrunk substantially. And it's not like I read any blogs myself. But that's mainly because the people I used to read stopped blogging.

I'd like to say I can just let it go, but I know it will always bug me until I post my last post and slip off into whatever there is after you ghost yourself.  But hey, since I've been invisible for years, being a ghost should be an easy transition.

And I oop

VSCO girl is a term, generally used as an insult, for a young, usually white woman who posts trendy pictures of herself edited on the app VSCO. Stereotypes of the VSCO girl include wearing scrunchies and Birkenstock sandals, drinking out of Hydro Flask reusable water canisters, saying sksksk and I oop, and generally seeking attention online.
--dictionary.com

Although I don't think there are many redeeming qualities found in TikTok, it has introduced me to some Gen Z terms that probably would have otherwise flown way under my radar.

Not that that would have been a bad thing.

However, when my teenage daughter started "sksksk..ing" the other day I joined her and freaked her out that I knew what a VSCO girl was. It's like I cracked her code.

Granted I have picked up other Gen Z terms while listening to my son while we play Fortnite. These include, "yeet," "salty," "triggered," "bruh," "chill," and "iconic." Oh yeah, and "ok boomer." Not that they originated all of these terms, they just co-opted them.

I've been trying to think of terms we had when I was a teenager. We said, "cool" a lot. Before something was "cool" it was "tough." "Far out" was popular, but mainly with John Denver. I don't think I ever said, "feeling groovy." In junior high, I remember a not so flattering term was to call someone a "fish." I'm not even sure what that meant. I still say, "dude" more than I should.

The thing I need to remember is that just because you know the terms the Gen Z-ers use doesn't mean you should use them. I tried "and I oop" on my daughter and she just rolled her eyes. But there is power in at least understanding what they are talking about without using the words yourself.

I'm cool with that.

And miles to snow before I sleep...

In the land of rain, snow is an anomaly.  It confuses people who are used to a liquid sky and not a frozen one. Ironically, Seattle is the gateway to Alaska, a place where snow just is.

Pretty as it may be, I don't really like snow. It stresses me out because it creates uncertainty and a feeling of being trapped. Schools close. Cars slide. And here, store shelves are emptied at the mention of snow. People in the Pacific Northwest are snow flakes.

Sure, when I was a kid, I loved snow. I loved building snow men and sledding and snowball fights. But our schools never closed because we all lived within walking distance of school. So there were no school buses to slide around on icy streets. And growing up, there weren't a lot of hills to make driving a challenge anyway.

I find it ironic that, even with all of our technology, we still can't control or predict the weather with a lot of certainty. So the weather is like death. You know it is coming, you just don't really know when.

Meanwhile, I stare out my office window at the flakes drifting down and melting as they hit the dark pavement. I am glad it is melting.I have yet to be stuck at work because of snow. My wife and children are home enjoying an extra day off. My dog is there too, probably disconcerted that she has nowhere in the snow covered back yard to pee or poop without getting her butt cold and wet.

And there are miles to snow before I sleep.

They say it's Elvis' birthday...

If Elvis hadn't died in 1977, he would have been 85 today. And it is hard to imagine what the King of Rock and Roll would have looked like at 85. But in honor of his birthday I'm posting some photos of my Elvis holiday ornament collection as they looked after I took down the Elvis tree on New Year's Day.

Lady's and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. Happy birthday Elvis!

Measuring time

And so it is the year 2020. It doesn't feel much different than 2019...or 2018 for that matter. It's all arbitrary anyway. The calendar is an artificial construct we can blame on the Catholic church to try and give Christianity some credibility by artificially pinpointing when Jesus lived.If the calendar was real, the countdown would have begun when the earth was spit out of whatever star it came from.

Or the countdown would have begun when man's ancestors crawled out of the primeval ooze and started thinking.

But no, we are stuck with a couple of a thousand years plus two decades. And there is still bickering about this being the start of the second decade because there was no year "0." Give me a fucking break. Is that all people have to worry about?

I wonder, if the calendar had never been invented, would we age?

I imagine, though, that people would have just come up with other ways to parse out time. They would probably refer to events rather than years, like, "Yeah, Johnnie was born in the time cousin Ed got kicked in the head by a mule."

Regardless, now we are stuck with the calendar and clocks and aging. I am still startled every time I look in the mirror. My inside self isn't aging as fast as my outside self. My daughter was going through old photographs yesterday. There were the few photos taken during my childhood. I was struck by the black and white moments captured by my mother, primarily on holidays and when were camping. There were also the school pictures that highlighted the gradual transition from childhood to young adulthood.

Since it was more complex to take photos back then, the moments captured were further apart. Today, it seems like every moment is captured. So it is harder to see the impact of the calendar.

Facebook fucks with your brain by periodically dredging up memories of things you posted two, three or five years before. Since I mainly post photos of my kids, it tugs at my heart to see how quickly we lost the years when they were excited when Daddy was home. Now I am lucky to get a grunt of acknowledgement when I walk in the door.

But I suppose that is what measuring time is all about, acknowledging what is past and can never be again. Or acknowledging how much of time we repeat.

Over and over again.

Don't let the New Year hit you on the way out

Okay, 2019 wasn't the worst year ever or the best year. But it was a year. I did manage to post more blog posts than I have since 2008 (just six shy of topping my 2008 number of posts). And despite my prolific number of blog posts and a record number of hits on my blog (thanks to the bots and whatever other software that keeps pinging my blog) I managed to have fewer actual readers than ever before.

Let's face it, I'll never be Tik-Tok famous.

I'm not a New Year's resolution kind of a person, so I won't make any pronouncements about 2020. I do hope it will be the last year Trump is in office. Though I just read on Twitter that he tied with Barack Obama for Time Magazine's most admired man. So I don't have much hope for humanity.

I won't say I'll post even more in 2020. Though a lack of new things to write about didn't stop me in 2019. I've slipped into blogging more and more as a release for myself since my fan base has dwindled significantly over the last 16 years.

I did learn some tough lessons in 2019 about how nasty the Internet can be. I've had to stave off hackers who tried hijacking several of my accounts due to password breeches on several sites. Apparently my old go to password was available on the dark web. I learned to develop complicated and difficult to remember unique passwords for my many accounts.

I also learned to beware deals on the Web through sites I'm not familiar with. It took several weeks going around with Paypal to finally get a refund from a fraudulent Web site called jerseyeasy.com.

I also took to social media to get a warranty on a faulty garbage disposal honored by the Moen company. They were reluctant to take blame for it leaking and said that that wasn't one of the things covered in the limited lifetime warranty. I finally called them out on Twitter and Facebook. They responded and had me send them a video of the leak. They finally gave in. My replacement garbage disposal arrived yesterday. I just have to fork out another $150 to have someone install it.

Of course there is the whole heart thing and my broken nose. I am having trouble wrapping my brain around it all because I feel fine and still spend an hour and a half a day working out on the treadmill and elliptical machines. But the new year and a new cardiologist should sort it all out.

Anyway, here's to 2020, may it bring us all hope and happiness.

Or at least not suck.

Have a nice trip...

...see you next fall.

I started the week of Christmas with a trip to the emergency room.  I woke up the Monday before Christmas and went to use the bathroom. I was half awake. Suddenly I felt light headed and fainted. Next thing I knew I had face planted the floor in the bathroom and blood was spurting out of my nose and a gash above my eye.

Needless to say it freaked my wife out. She helped me clean up and called my doctor's office. They weren't able to get me in until the day after Christmas but they told my wife to take me to the emergency room.

Maybe it is because I was raised a Christian Scientist and didn't go to doctor's until I was in my 20s.  But I hate going to medical facilities. And the ER is probably the worst place to go. For whatever reason, I felt guilty for having fainted and more guilty for bleeding all over the place.

I got checked in and asked all of the questions about how it happened. I didn't really know. One minute I was headed to the bathroom and the next I was slamming into the floor. I just wanted them to stitch me up and let me go home.

But they did a CT scan and then hooked me up for an EKG. The PA then told me they had figured out why I had fainted. The EKG showed that my heart beats were irregular. It was something called A-fib. One of the chambers of my heart wasn't playing along with the others.

Eventually I was stitched up (nine to be exact) and sent home with a broken nose and a face that looked like I'd been in a bar brawl. I was also told to see a cardiologist.

Okay, the last thing you want to hear when you are my age is that something is wrong with your heart. And although they tell me that my condition is pretty common it still kind of freaks me out. I have been working out daily for years. I assumed that my heart should be pretty strong by now. So to find out it isn't beating right is troubling to say the least.

Ironically it could be a month before a cardiologist can see me and let me know what the next steps are. My faith in medical science has not been restored.

Home for the holidays

I tried an experiment and posted this photo on Facebook. I thought it was hilarious. Apparently very few of my Facebook friends agree. Only three people liked it.

This is why I generally keep my blog life and my real life separate. I used to think people would be impressed when they knew me in real life and then read my blog.

Not true at all. I've learned that for most of the mainstream world I'm just weird.

Regardless, I am taking the week of Christmas off from work and I will be home alone with my family. And the kids are past the point of being overly excited by Christmas. So it should be interesting.

I am kind of past that point as well. I have always enjoyed the build up to Christmas more than the actual day. And not having a religious bone in my Atheist body keeps me from associating anything with the various rituals other than they are relics from my childhood.

I also no longer have the thrill of anticipating what Santa will bring me. There isn't much I want anymore. I'm moving into that phase where I just don't want to accumulate any more stuff.

I can't even look forward to all the Christmas foods that are floating around this time of year. I'm forcing myself to be aware of the calories and that takes most of the fun out of eating.

You know what? I now understand why my parents didn't share my enthusiasm around the holidays when I was a kid.

Ze complaint! Ze complaint!

Ze plane! Ze plane! 
Fantasy Island, Tattoo (played by Hervé Villechaize)

We live in a world of complaints. I get them at work. I get them at home. And most of the time I sit quietly and stare into space. But sometimes I complain back, just not generally out loud. I used to write letters, then e-mails.  Lately I use social media.

Case in point. Our garbage disposal broke a year ago in April. You don't know how much you miss a garbage disposal until you don't have one. I tried buying a composting bucket, but my wife complained about the smell and the fruit flies it attracted. So I ordered a new garbage disposal on Amazon.

Now not being an expert on garbage disposals, I ordered one by Waste King that seemed highly rated on Amazon. It was also on sale. Still it cost me around $100 which still seems like a lot to me for something that grinds up food scraps. And since my handyman skills stop at changing light bulbs I also ordered professional installation through Amazon that set me back another $147. 

The garbage disposal arrived. A few days later the installer came and installed it. And for almost a year, all was right with the world of garbage disposal. But then a few months ago my wife noticed there was a leak under the sink. She traced it to the bottom of the garbage disposal.

A search online told us that when a disposal is leaking internally, it is time to get a new garbage disposal. It also said a garbage disposal was supposed to last at least ten years. So I go on Amazon and find my garbage disposal order and find a product support link for the disposal. Turns out the Waste King is a Moen product. I found the limited warranty for the disposal on their Webpage. Reading through the legal mumbo jumbo, I determined that the disposal should still be under warranty. It has a support number to call. I send it to me wife because she does all the verbal complaining to companies for the household.

She calls and a very assertive customer service person says the warranty doesn't cover leaks (although it does specify what leaks it doesn't cover...flange ring leaks, dishwasher connection leaks and elbow joint leaks...it said nothing about internal leaks that the Internet world claims mean the disposal is toast). The customer service person promises to send us an email explaining how to trace the leak. She does and it is of no help whatsoever.

Scrooge and Marley

I've been waiting all year to use this.

I can be so dense (or pirates of the Internet)

I usually am pretty savvy when it comes to shopping online. I usually just use Amazon and eBay because I can trust that, even if something goes wrong with what I ordered, they'll stand behind it. But I also try to get the best price. Sometimes, however, finding the best price isn't the best deal.

So last night I get ready to order a second controller for my son's XBox for one of his Christmas gifts. I find it on Amazon for $45 and I have free shipping. But I decide to search Google to see if there are any better prices. And Google has this thing pop up that compares prices for you. Most of the prices are more than Amazon's $45. But this one site pops up that offers if for $36 and no tax and a relatively low shipping cost.

I go to the site -- jerseyeasy.com -- and it seems legit. They have all the bells and whistles. They indeed have the controller and it is cheaper. And they have the option of checking out with Paypal so I think it is safe. So I put the thing in my shopping cart and start to check out. And although Google had said there would be no tax, tax does pop up on the order form. But it is still cheaper than Amazon.

So I complete the transaction. And I get a confirmation e-mail, but it is pretty vague. And my confirmation from Paypal shows payment is made to someone with an Asian name. That sets off red flags because I've ended up buying things that come from China before and they take forever to arrive and there have been many cases of counterfeit items being sold from China. The confirmation e-mail just says standard shipping in five to seven days.

I start to feel uneasy about the order this morning and do a Google search for jerseyeasy.com (something I should have done before ordering from them). Sure enough I start seeing multiple complaints of ordering items that don't arrive and Paypal being notified but not issuing refunds because the seller shows proof an item was delivered. The people complaining say that they receive tracking notices, but find out something was delivered to another address, not theirs. This screams of fraud.

Turns out all of the contact numbers and e-mail addresses on  jerseyeasy.com are fake. Even the storefront photo they show of an address in New York is actually a Google maps photos of a different city and state.

I did contact Paypal and opening a complaint to try and cancel the transaction. But from what I've read from other people who have filed complaints, Paypal hasn't been very sympathetic. It could take up to a month to resolve. Meanwhile me trying to save a few bucks cost me $42. And now I'll have to order it from Amazon anyway.

It just comes down to acknowledging that if something seems too good to be true, it isn't.

Just one, wafer thin impeach-mint

I would be remiss not to acknowledge that Trump is finally being impeached. And despite almost incontrovertible evidence that he is guilty, there is a snowballs chance in hell that a super majority of the Senate will vote to convict him. And his "deplorable" supporters are more rabid than ever in the their belief that he is the best thing since sliced Wonder bread.

So I kind of wonder, what is the point in spending all of this time, money and energy trying to pop this pimple out of the White House? The morons who support him just claim that it's all made up and the Senate not convicting him will be their proof that the constant verbal flatulence he spews doesn't stink.

The sociopath doesn't even have the decency to resign. He just keeps up his deluded blather that he is the victim of a witch hunt. Truth is, there is a turd in the White House punch bowl and the country keeps drinking out of it no matter how many times it is pointed out.

What truly depresses me is that none of the so called checks and balances of power that the founding father's tried to put in place seem to work when you place a morally corrupt mad man in office.

And I say that with the utmost respect for the office, not the mad man.

It's beginning to look a lot like Monday

It is a gray Monday in Seattle. That in itself is nothing new. Most days are gray this time of year (and much of the rest of the year as well). The holiday lights help. I kind of wish they would stay up all year round.

I was walking with my son yesterday evening. He and I take the dog on a walk a few times a week more to get him away from video games for a few minutes than to exercise the dog. She is a nervous little thing and probably burns off enough energy bullying the cats without having to be drug around the neighborhood.

Anyway, we were walking and I was enjoying all of the various approaches to decorating with lights that people attempt this time of year. My son, a budding young curmudgeon, was less impressed. He was especially repulsed by a larger than life inflatable Santa wearing pajamas and bunny slippers in one person's yard. The dog seemed startled by the thing, too.

I admit, I'm not a big fan of the inflatable things, either. My wife purchased a couple of inflatable snowmen a few years ago that I reluctantly staked to our front yard. One was Olaf from Frozen. I just think the things are tacky. One of them lost it's inner glow last year so we finally tossed it. I'm not sure what happened to Olaf. I couldn't find him anywhere in the garage. I am a bit relieved.

I used to go to great lengths decorating with lights. I spent hours on the roof clipping icicle lights to the gutters. At one point they ran the entire length of both the front and back of our house. It was quite a feat. But I just can't do it anymore so I confine the light show to the bushes and trees and around the garage door and on the fence. It looks just fine.

Again, I wouldn't mind having lights all year round. I put them up for Halloween already. What would be cool is lights you could hang that would change color according to the season, orange for Halloween; red, green, white and blue for Christmas; red for Valentines; green for St. Patrick's Day; purple for Easter; multi-colored for spring; red, white and blue for the 4th; then orange and brown for fall and then back to Halloween.

I should Google it. I imagine someone makes all season lights.

Nothing pressing

It is difficult not to get caught up in the flurry of activity to prepare for the holidays. Halloween had barely passed when Christmas merchandise and decorations hit the stores. Thanksgiving was a blip on the radar. People had Christmas trees and lights up before the turkey was even digested.

I put the Elvis tree up the day after Thanksgiving.

I started putting lights on the outside of the house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I will finish putting them up this weekend. I have given up going onto my roof to hang lights on the gutters. It is hard work and inevitably you put up a string of lights and a patch goes out. I'm sticking to lights in the bushes, trellis and trees in front of the house.

I have much of my Christmas shopping done. It is a challenge because my wife also has a birthday a week before Christmas so I have two celebrations in a row to plan for. So there is birthday cake and balloons to pick up in edition to stocking stuffers.

On top of all this both of my children have indicated they don't buy the whole Santa Claus myth anymore. Part of me is relieved because Santa has gotten credit for gifts I purchased for years.  So I kind of want to feel the love.

Well at least when Christmas is over I don't have to worry about anything until Valentines Day.

Sigh.

Mindfulness

I have been practising mindfulness for more than a year now using the Calm meditation app. It guides you through ten-minute meditations on a daily basis. The concept is to teach you how to live in the moment and stop your brain from fixating on negative thoughts or memories.

I think it has helped me a bit. It has forced me to take that 10-minute break everyday and at the very least focus on my breathing instead of what I am supposed to be getting done (like figure out what to get my son for Christmas that doesn't involve a $400 virtual reality headset).

As you know (there's that "you" again), I think a great deal about what the brain is creating all the time for me. I struggle with understanding why, if I create my own reality, I can't come up with a better one that doesn't include Trump.

But I digress.

Looking at the photos above, I am mindful that the hair on my head and my beard are almost white. But my eyebrows are still dark brown. Why is that?

I don't think that is technically what mindfulness is supposed to be about. But it does try and teach you not to be judgmental. So I try not to focus on how big my nose and ears look in the photos. Though I did hear on Tik Tok the other day that the nose and ears are the only part of the body that continues to grow as you age. So it must be true (I also Googled it and Dr. Oz confirms it).

A star is dead

If you (and "you" know who I'm talking about) have followed my blog for some length of time, you know that each Christmas I decorate an artificial white tree with Elvis themed ornaments. It is a tradition I have carried on for almost 20 years.  I've even tried to get my children to participate (if not understand) the tradition. When they were younger, they happily did, primarily because many of the ornaments play music.

But this year I was the only one who showed any enthusiasm when, on the day after Thanksgiving, I pulled out the white tree and my ornament bins and declared it was time to put up the Elvis tree. My son, who has become quite the curmudgeon basically refused to help. My daughter played along for awhile but got distracted and began drawing on a green Christmas ball that has been in the Elvis ornament bin for years but never goes on the tree because I only allow blue Christmas balls on the Elvis tree.

So I more or less decorated the Elvis tree by myself which is fine because I like to place the ornaments in a certain order and the kids tend to just toss them willy-nilly on the tree only to be rearranged by me after they have left.

But my children's lack of enthusiasm kills any hope I had of the tradition continuing after I've joined Elvis in the great Graceland in the sky (which we know isn't on the moon). My only hope is that they will at least sell all the ornaments on eBay and not just give them to Goodwill to be shoved in a bargain bin.

Footprints in the dust

I've been watching the third season of The Crown on Netflix.  It's a bio of Great Britain's royal family. And since all of my DNA results indicate that 99 percent of my ancestry stems from England I find it interesting if not fascinating.

The episode I watched last night was about Prince Philip having a mid-life crisis around the time Neal Armstrong was walking on the moon. Prince Philip felt as though his life was meaningless compared to someone who had actually reached the moon. He felt as though by actually reaching the moon, the astronauts had been given some cosmic knowledge.

So Prince Philip, being a Royal, arranges to meet the Apollo astronauts and ask them some philosophical questions. He is seated in a room in Buckingham Palace with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and asks them what they discovered on the moon. They all stared blankly at him (in between cold induced sneezes) and said they were too busy following their astronaut protocols and check lists to have had time to wax philosophical about what it meant to set foot on the moon. They had simple reached the heavens, took some photos, picked up some rocks and left.

Prince Philip was a bit pissed. He realized the astronauts, although brave, were really not very deep people. They shrugged off his questions and instead wanted to know what it was like being a prince and having umpteen palaces. Then they dashed about Buckingham Palace taking snapshots with more gusto than they had on the moon.

And miles to go before I sleep

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
 But I have promises to keep,
 And miles to go before I sleep,
 And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 It is pretty clear that Frost is talking about death when he says, "And miles to go before I sleep." He's also talking about having lots to to before that happens. But since none of us can really know when the big sleep is coming, you can't really count on how many miles you have left.

In the movie The Crow, the villain talks about being given a snow globe as a child that contained a cemetery. His quote was, "Childhood is over the moment you know you're gonna die." I remember my grandmother (who lived next door to where I grew up) used to tell me on a regular basis that she wasn't going to live for another year. This went on until I was 17 and she really did die. She died at home in bed and for some reason my mother made my brothers and I go next door and look at her lifeless body.

She was my father's adopted mother and my mother never did care much for her. My parents had her buried next to my grandfather (who had died when I was four). There was no funeral. They claimed she hadn't wanted one. Not that there would have been many people to attend. My grandmother never visited with anyone but our family.

Regardless, it was the first time I'd ever seen a dead person. The next time was when I attended the funeral of my other grandmother and they had an open casket funeral. I remember filing by the casket and looking at my maternal grandmother and thinking she looked nothing like my grandmother. I also remember my Uncle Ira standing next to the coffin and waving at her and saying, "Bye, bye mommie." Uncle Ira had been released from the state hospital to attend the funeral. And I remember my Aunt Gladys standing next to the casket snapping photos of my grandmother's corpse with one of those old cameras that used flash cubes. She later appalled my mother by asking her if she wanted to see photos of their mom and showing her a packet of the shots of her lying in the casket.

Old dog, old tricks

I wonder a great deal about the futility of a lot of the things humans do (like TikTok) only to end up with the inevitable date with the Grim Reaper. Continuing to take classes after you hit 55 or so is one of them.

I know, I know, you are saying that you are never too old to learn something and that it keeps the brain active. But I end up taking a lot of training for my work and the information seems to pop in one ear and out the other.

Plus, I never really learn anything new. I have come to the conclusion that there isn't anything new. All ideas have been thought, recycled, forgot and thought again. Just Google it.

Part of it is the futility I feel about furthering my formal education at my age. What would I do with an advanced degree at this point? My career is where it is going to be until I retire. If I left my current job, it is highly unlikely anyone would hire me at my age. Especially since I am a marketing person. They all want youth because most of the market is young.

I know I am sounding rigid and negative. But it is my truth. I'm not going to become a scientist and discover something that will change the world. I'm definitely not going to become a software developer.

Part of it is that I am tired of jumping through hoops and chasing balls. I feel like I deserve to curl up in my dog bed by the fire and dream of chasing rabbits.

Why do I suddenly have the urge to howl?