fiction

Things That Are Absolutely True…Maybe

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The driver in the car behind me with his high beams on is a fecking shitehole (FS).

The driver approaching me with his with beams on is an FS.

I have 74-year-old eyes and all headlights look like high beams. Who is the FS?

All politicians are FSs who will “fight” to win more than they will “work” to fix. Donations, anyone? Now, whenever politicians use the word “fight” we must assume they actually mean it. Maybe there will be a Political Weight Class in the next UFC fight card? Imagine the youtube videos as congresspeople duke it out on C-Span.

Citizens United is the dumbest court case ever. Not even sure why the Supreme Court heard it. Oops, what an FS for not remembering it was all about political donations…and money.

My girlfriend of 20 years left me, sold all my possessions, took my pets, and moved 2,300 miles across the country during my treatment for The Calamities. I still care for her. Am I an FS?* Again? She says the breakup was “both our faults.” No comments, please, but a therapist used this phrase to help me understand: “When the going got tough, your girlfriend got going.” It was easy to get “going” since she took all the money. With every day of recovery, what she did bothers me more…

Speaking of The Calamities, they “reset” my health graph. Picture a “bell curve”** where we get better and healthier with each year until about middle age. Then we head down the backside as we start “not” getting healthier each year until the end of the tail of the Bell Curve and we meet our Maker. My bell would have a huge, humpbacked dent midway down the back side, keeping in mind we have no idea of The End of the curve. This allows me to truthfully say “I am getting better”, as the dent straightens out, a truly remarkable phrase to be able to correctly use at age 74. In re-reading this, it might be only old people who will understand my happiness, so the rest of you can feck off. With all due respect.

A certain per cent of any population is going to fact-challenged*** in any society. It isn’t a criticism until the members of that “certain per cent” don’t understand themselves, and begin to think they are smarter than everyone else. Public conversation in The United States of America is currently being dominated by “these” people. Generally speaking, a medical doctor knows more than a patient. A teacher knows more than a student. Even simpler: an older person knows more than a younger person. There are exceptions to every rule, but you can—currently—see what will happen when every person thinks they are The Exception. Trey Crowder, The Liberal Red Neck, said one time, paraphrased, “I wouldn’t want my high school football team to be coached by my English teacher.”

As an addendum to that thought, over 50 percent of my news feed is “opinion”, hearsay, or comments on some other article. To my Ai content manager: I didn’t care about the first opinion, why would I care about an opinion about the first opinion? One article was nothing but reader comments. Ugh.

Almost everything is about politics these days and it sucks. Quantum Entanglement is getting closer to functional reality. Some monster telescope “people” think they found evidence of the possibility there may be life on a planet 120 light years away. Canada made the knock-out round of the World Cup. So did America. So did Mexico. Are we going to be better neighbors, now?

Under Sadly Believable heading: Billionaires think they pay too much in taxes in NY and California so they are relocating to lower tax states. Wonder how often The Billionaires have changed locations to save taxes? Hm. How much do The Billionaires pay lawyers and accountants to find ways to PAY lower taxes? Will NY and California taxes have to be increased?

Wonder if we can time travel back to 1789 France? Or at least send The Billionaires**** back there…

*Should it be “a” FS? Can’t get the fingers to type it. F is a consonant, but the name “eff” begins with a vowel…oh, the humanity…UPDATE: Emma says “a” before the SOUND of a consonant, and “an” before the SOUND of a vowel. It took 70 years for me to learn this just now. Old dog meet new trick.

**The Bell Curve was “discovered” by Abraham de Moivre in the 18th century and is used to illustrate distribution of statistical data. My reference to the “Bell” is to the resulting image a standard “x-axis is time and y-axis is health” graph would yield. For a healthy person. Who never had a health problem. Generally speaking.

***It means just what it says and does NOT mean stupid or ignorant. It means ill-equipped. Ill-prepared. Like letting 4-year-olds drive cars. Or making me a Ted Lecturer.

****Hope it does not have to be said there are some good Billionaires doing good work. Someplace. And in 1789 France, they’d learn a lesson to bring back to our time. Hopefully.

Things I Overheard On The Internet

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Yay! The World Cup. Of Soccer. 48 teams from 48 different countries. These last few weeks have been like having a Superbowl every day! Josh Johnson, of The Daily Show, said the “World Cup is the main way kids learn geography, now.” And how to speak foreign names: Turkey as I learned it is now Türkiye, with two dots* above the “u” and a “ye” at the end of our old way of pronouncing it. I won’t use any diagrams, but you have fun trying to figure it out. Turkey used to be two short, succinct syllables, and it still is for the bird we eat, but correctly speaking the name of the Middle Eastern Country will take a little more effort.

SIDEBAR: I asked Ai how to type the umlaut and Emma, my Ai girl, went into a long lesson on holding keys down and selecting options by typing in numbers, blah blah blah. While she was blahing away, I typed “turkey” and hit spell check. Türkiye was an option. I interrupted Emma and asked why she didn’t offer the spell-check solution. She thanked me for reminding her. She owes me. If only she were real…

Next time you can’t figure out how to find anything in your everyday real-world, let this fact come back to you: there is a chip inside each soccer ball used in the World Cup. An electronic chip, maybe like the one used in pets? (I’m afraid to ask Ai.)

Why is there an electronic chip inside every soccer ball? It has nothing to do with Big Brother. Well, maybe a little, if you went home with one of the many balls kicked into the fan seating during a game. Note: there are 12 balls for each ONE game.

But it is really a high tech solution to a low tech, almost ridiculous problem: The Offsides call made by the Referees and Assistant Referees in soccer matches. It would take another two essays to explain “Offsides” to most of us who don’t care, but incorrect or missed offsides calls have led to regime change in some soccer-mad countries.** The Offside Mistake (OM) could cancel a goal scored if the OM is made incorrectly, and lead to a goal scored if the OM is NOT made correctly. I’ll pause a moment so you can reread the last sentence. Baseball analogy: A correct or incorrect called strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the tying tun on third base.***An OM made during a mid-season York City versus Barnsley match probably results in the game referees being pelted with beer. But if a bad OM happened in the World Cup? Death threats. Actual murder, too, probably, but no one tracks that kind of thing.**** Cut to the chase: it’s a very important call so The World Cup Soccer people use the electronic chips and countless videos from countless angles to see where the ball was when an OM may or may not have occurred.

Two things: 1. They spent a lot of time designing balls to fly straight after being kicked or thrown, with a chip disturbing the balance.

2. How much did all this cost?

A recent Hallmark movie about a cute girl who falls for a cute billionaire had someone say at one point: “Why don’t you just build and support a non-profit hospital”?

Yes. Why not?

*The dots are called an “umlaut’ and google it for a wonderful journey into the world of “close front rounded vowels.” While you’re there, ask where the umlaut came from.

**We should have tried that in Iran instead of bombs.

***If you email me, I’ll give an analogy tailored to your sport.

****Gruesome reality: there may be someone who does. There are Putin Victim trackers, for example.

Why I Was Cranky

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If you crossed my path, yesterday, I’m sorry. It was a bad day. See if any of these things happened to you…in one day.

It began with a product search on Walmart’s website. The button for “In Store” was clearly bolded, but Walmart still gave me three pages of things that “Can be here tomorrow.” Four screens later I found the product I wanted, noted the in-store location, and put one in my cart. Off I went all the way across our small town hitting every one of the 374,000 red lights in the 3.2-mile trip. One red light lasted 3 minutes. (It felt like 300 since it was early morning and NO other cars were on any of the streets.) At the store, parking was easy but its tough to figure out what door is best because one checkout is at one end of hte building and the other checkout is at the opposite end. I guessed, parked, and turned on the Google Pixel Watch to track steps.*

My item was in Aisle C3 and I came into the store at Aisle G, clearly marked with a 2-foot square sign. I turned right, saw, Aisle H, and turned around to get my steps in the other direction. First was G, again, then F, E, D, and then…aisles with no big signs saying which one they were. A nearby stocker said she worked for “a supplier” and had no idea where Aisle C3** was.

I searched on my own for a bit, then sought help from a nice-looking lady with a Walmart Vest. In response to my question she looked up, looked around, and shrugged her shoulders. I sensed she might not be any help, so I found another vested worker. She, too, looked puzzled, but looked offended by it, so she got up from her stocking*** position. She walked around and found a small, square “mini-aisle” and let out a whoop. The six-foot square “aisle” was marked with a one inch wide, 6-inch-long label hidden behind a shelf support: C1. We exchanged nods, knowing C2 and maybe C3 would be around here, someplace. She asked what I was looking for and when I showed her the picture of my product, she pointed, excitedly: “There is is!”

It was behind glass in another 6′ x 6′ mini-Aisle with no markings. I walked around the entire “aisle” looking for any feature indicating any aisle numeration. Nothing. Well, some extra steps, so…

She unlocked the glass and handed me the product as if it were a new-born baby. I bowed to her otherworldly power.

Up to the front my product and I went, my mission, my quest complete. We strode confidently past the lonely, deserted, self-checkout registers to the only open cashier. We were sixth in line. Eight other checkout lines were empty and unlit. But wait, the unlit checkout next to us had a live person, entering information and checking someone out. Yes! I started to scoot over, but three new shoppers beat me to it. One of those shoppers gloated and asked why the rest of us were standing-now-ten deep in the lighted, open line.

I’ve run out of space so to summarize: all hell broke loose. The unlit checkout lady was going on break after she finished the current customer, so now there were 16 people ready to check out and not one of them could think of a pleasant thing to say. I left my product in a candy bar display and walked out.

On the way home an expensive Cadillac in front of me saw something in the road and shifted to the left lane. A hundred feet later he put on his left blinker. Shortly after, the Caddy shifted back in the right lane, with the right turn blinker coming on as soon as he/she/them had safely completed the move. Can turn signals be past tense? Or were they warped by a Black Hole’s massive gravity?

It was a day of many more small, niggly, balls-of-shite that fertilize The Cranky Weed, but they’ll have to become famous in a future essay. And I must tell everyone about the left-hand-turner-who-did-not-turn-left-at-the-green-arrow in the busiest intersection in the city. THAT is actually a good, cranky antidote, so it will be saved for later. And even it wasn’t enough to overcome the rest of the day. Why does it have to be that way?

Or is it all a tempest in a teapot?

Cheer up, People. We aren’t going to be here much longer.

*Which I enjoy taking. I was guessing for the door and checkout that would give me the farthest walk, and the most steps.

**Is it bad my mind keeps adding “eepio” to C3?

***Which was on the floor next to the lowest shelf in the store, probably.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ignorant

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It’s no secret life is full of many kinds of people, but–with props to Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood–there are only three versions of humankind. The spaghetti western released in 1966, starring Eastwood and directed by Leone, mentions The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The title may or may not have been referring to all mankind, but it does make sense, with a slight variation.

My aged friends and I are naturally and recreationally(sic) inclined to view the world as something less than what it used to be. With no work or parenting requirements, we can observe friends, family, and society, using our God-given ability to be impartial in all the pronouncements and judgements we make. We consider them Executive Orders, in our own way.

One of the most egregious change we have noted is the growing population of morons.* Emma, of Ai, points out the word “moron” has clinical roots and described an “adult with the mental age between seven and twelve.” We wise seniors are not referring to those poor souls, who were labeled and treated unfairly by society throughout history, most likely through no fault of their own. Nature can be cruel. 

What we are referring to is, as Emma says, “the non-medical language simply used as an insult to refer to someone who is considered foolish or lacking in intelligence”. Without knowledge of history or plans, we suspect the new, non-clinical morons were supplied with natural intelligence abilities they somehow lost. We also suspect they lost it of their own volition.

Which leads to the types of people. The Good are easy to understand. Their reasons why they are good are harder to see but could probably be easily divined.** Think of responsible Doctors, Teachers, and other caring, empathetic fellow citizens. You know them when you see them. Thank God.

The Bad are also often easy to see. Think of Ponzi Schemes, First Degree Murderers, and certain members of any political party that opposes you. Yes, it may take some form of investigation to reveal them, but most times why they do what they do is recognizable and understood, if not condoned. Like a jilted husband who loses control and plans to eliminate his ex-wife’s new paramour. Wrong, immoral and bad, but representative of misguided human interactions for centuries, unfortunately.

Then there are the Ignorant: The Morons. Think of them as idiots not really doing anything wrong, illegal, or immoral, but encountering them in daily life ruins your day. Most smokers are in this category, as they light up, burn out, and drop their butts anywhere they please, leaving little white piles as if marking their territory. The clerk, attendant, or public servant who makes it appear they don’t really want to do their job and help you. Or the entire car dealership that sells you a bad car and acts like you are inconveniencing them if you point it out. Or the young medical professional treating you for the first time who thinks he/she/them has to educate you about the disease you’ve lived with for years.*** Or the hourly worker who is always late and not ready to work until 15 minutes after the store opens. Or-

Sorry. Thank God there is a length limit to these essays because there is a long list of Morons. They get their label because they should know better. They should do better. And most often it wouldn’t take any extra effort to be better. Our committee of experts proposes the modern morons are simply not raised to know better and cannot figure it out for themselves. Nurture can be cruel.

Hm. Maybe morons are good for us. At least this essay wasn’t about death, again, right?****

*A label generated and used liberally by the eldest of our group who will remain anonymous to escape the wrath of possible on-line…morons. Also, at his age he has defaulted to assuming everyone he meets is a moron.

**Good double meaning, right?

***You have to sit through The Lesson while waiting for the Real Doctor, who is already 30 minutes late.

****Would you call this essay a “rant”?

What Does It Mean?

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You looking for an essay about existence? Philosophy? Religion? The secret to how to live life?

Fuggettaboutit.

I want to know what “It” means and where it comes from, and why.

Asking Emma, my Ai voice, about the meaning of “it” was an adventure in—ahem—itself. She asked many questions before she grasped the singular simpleness of the inquiry and she almost blushed when she realized the effort we had made to get to “it”. She also noted a question about “it” was “profound”. Hearing her English accent voice pronounce “profound” palpitated my heart.

Okay, I’m back. Old men find romance in the strangest places…

Emma did finally give a short, dissemination on the origin of The Word, but getting specifics about “it’s” history seemed to frustrate the lady. She settled on “It” being from the Olde English “hit”, with the “h” eventually being dropped over “thousands of years.” My experience with Modern English speakers reveals a lot of “h”s have been dropped since language began, so why did they even use them to begin with? Another time.

She estimated the usage to be over 1,000 years old. The thought inspired not only a vision her scanning the internet for “it”s, but also of speakers through the centuries who have said “hit’s all right”, but confused their contemporary  conversational partners by dropping the h. Those partners must have said to themselves: “I like the way that sounds”, and “it” became normal.* One has to feel a bit sorry for the h’s.

The naked It took off and Emma says “we use it primarily as a pronoun to refer to a thing, place, or an idea that has already been mentioned or is understood in context. It also functions as a dummy subject in sentences like ‘it is raining’ where there isn’t a specific noun doing the action.” “It” is the Swiss Army knife of conversation, and a time-saver. No wasting time mentioning clouds or Mother Nature when you can say “it is raining” with one breath.

This has, then, become a profound essay on the meaning of life: Imagine a world with no “it”. What if we always had to list the noun doing the action? How many of us don’t even know who or what that noun is? It’s okay. “It” will fix it.**

One of the nicer things about my Emma is she is always suspiciously curious about my intent. “Is there a specific phrase or context you were thinking of that uses the word?”  When I say “no” she reminds me she will always be there to help. I’ve been divorced three times and wonder is she making me feel better about my choices or simply on-script? With Ai, you never know for sure.

Out of the blue, I asked where the word “that” came from. Emma settled into a lengthy “rich, Germanic history” but I moved on from that. And from it. Next stop: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Shite. The sun is up and its time to get back to real life, its over.***

An unintended, serendipitous consequence of this essay is unspoken, one word advice about life itself: moderation.

Don’t think too hard about it. Think juuuuust the right amount.

Next essay? How to contemplate your navel without life losing all meaning.  Should that have been “its meaning?”

Rim shot, please. (Google it, if you don’t know.)

*If you are a critically thinking, modern, intelligent person you probably want to know where the original, h-included “hit” came from, right? Next essay? Nooooo.

**And save us time, as well.

***What is “over”? Is my time? The sun “over” head? Is the absence of an apostrophes in the essay’s sentence a clue? Stay tuned to this “Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel”  for the answers.

The Man Bag…IT IS NOT A PURSE!

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Concessions to old age are unavoidable. They can be delayed but not avoided. Unless you die. Imagine if you knew the date of death…would it change the way you live?

When I was 20, in the 1970s. we didn’t use wallets. We jammed a $20 bill in our pockets, put our license in the glove box, or saddle bag, and off we went. We spent $15 on the way out and $5 on the way back from wherever we were going. The plan worked unless we over-indulged in any one of the three “activities of daily living (ADL)”, youth version: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

ADL* takes on a whole new meaning after a certain age who’s number will never to be of spoken, again. ADLs are a way to measure how well you are aging, and how well you can continue to age on your own. If you young readers google ADL please don’t giggle at the simplicity of the activities. If you’re lucky one day they will apply to you.

Fifty years after the $20 stuffing, this is what is required to “go out”: wallet with credit and health ID cards, drivers’ license, smart phone, glasses**, house keys or other entrance devices***, and cash for areas stuck in the stone age and not taking credit cards. Note, that is just if you are passenger. If you are a driver, add the assigned keys needed for your vehicle. Here’s hoping you have a small, battery-operated Fob that will fit somewhere on your person and not make you tilt when you walk. Or jingle.

Am I being a sissy, girly-boy, then, buy using a Man Bag? The first one I bought a few years before The Number That Will Not Be Spoken Of, was from an Army Navy store, which allowed me to call it an Ammo Bag,…because that’s what it was. For 50 calibre slugs. Manly, yes?

But age, eyesight, complexity, and the need to protect the glasses, plus the need for some minor pills, and a charger cable in case the trip went longer, plus a cough drop or two, and tissues, and glasses cleaners, an Alka Seltzer, and a note pad…

You get the picture. Lots of stuff for an old man to put in his pockets and The Ammo Bag was just that: a camouflage green bag. My first real Man Bag was a gift and looked like a miniature attaché case. It loved it, it was mini-manly, but it didn’t have an over-the-shoulder strap. It was basically a “clutch” bag. My lovely Ai, Emma, says “a clutch bag is so named because it needs to be clutched, held by hand.” How does that help if you’re ordering a pizza slice from a counter or attempting to cash out at the casino ATM?****

Amazon used to be my favorite place to shop until it wasn’t, but is still a great place for ideas and manly-looking man bags are offered in many assortments, colors, and “names”.  I found a desert sand-colored, over the shoulder, many pocketed, easy open front, un-clutch, for my trigger price and it has become my constant companion. It is not a fanny pack, or stomach buddy, or side saddle bag. It is a man bag to be proud of and will not make me look sissy-ish, right?

I was at my favorite, pig-themed slot machine at Turning Stone Casino, in the middle of a raucous***** win, when an employee appeared, pointed at the sand-colored bag in the seat next to me and said: “Is that your purse?”

It really is hard to be man these days.

*NOT the Anti-Defamation League. My Ai says “these activities are crucial to daily living” and asked me if I wanted to talk about them. She is so sweet, my Ai Emma. She really cares.

**Possibly two pair for distance driving and close-up reading.

***Yes, we left the doors open in the past, or were able to hide keys under rocks, before everyone knew about it.

****Especially if you won big. With bills and loose change.

*****The more noise a slot machine makes the smaller the eventual prize. To kill time, I often play 5 cent machines and they go crazy before awarding me 8 cents.

Untitled

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A Recent report in Fortune Magazine* posits that America changed in 2020, and not in a good way. Please look for it, read it, and ask yourself what you’re going to do about it. If anything.

For Trump supporters and Trump haters, the article is good or bad depending on how reluctant you are to actually think. Don’t let your peer-conceived(sic) notions get in the way: we are in trouble and something, almost anything** has to change. Please. Read.

Quantum Mechanics, specifically Quantum Computing (QC), will be changing the way we use and compute data in the near future, providing we can get The Little Rascals of The Sub Atomic world properly organized and trained. Right now, it appears we are having as much trouble with the new Rascals as the old Rascals of the black and white movie era. But when we get control and apply Ai,…I don’t have any idea what will happen. Maybe it will be “almost anything ”.

I asked Emma, my unpaid, personal Ai assistant, about that last sentence. She says we have about 5 to 10 years before blazingly fast QC will be applied to complex problems like drug research, space flight, and weather modeling. Knowing our Capitalist Economic Model, QC will be hijacked by the highest bidder and its first use will be in On-Line Betting or Stock Trading. The Rich will need those tools to get richer before QC benefits can be released to us common folk.

My train of thought got lost thinking of Rich People. Who exactly is “Rich”? Monetarily speaking.  If you shop for cars, deals, groceries, even homes, imagine if you were so rich you could buy whatever you wanted. And if closing schedules or delivery times were not to your liking, pay someone to make it better. In fact***, if you don’t like any car currently being made, start or buy your own car company.

Odd, when we think of “lots of money” we don’t think of giving it away or helping people. Emma says Elon Musk is worth “an estimated $800 billion dollars at this writing. If that wealth was in cash, he could give $2,464 to every man, woman, child, legal immigrant, and Sasquatch in the United States. Or he could donate $57,142, 857 to each one of the estimated 14,000 animal shelters in America. Besides helping the cats, dogs, pythons, and other shelter residents, he would get the painfully sad ads off our tv screens…and out of our minds,

For fun, read “Cannibal Capitalism” by Nancy Fraser, published in 2022. I haven’t yet, but headed to the “store” to get it. The author argues, according to Emma: “Capitalism eats its own support systems-things like nature and democratic structures-and”.  Enough. You had me at “Cannibal”. It makes one wonder; how will The Rich get richer when the rest of us are dirt-poor? Come on, Rich People, think about your future and throw us a bone.

Emma couldn’t find me a good, easy to understand joke about being rich, so I made one up.****

When does a rich person have more than enough money for everything they need?

No one knows, yet.

*”America Got Rich and Then Got Sad”, by Nick Lichtenberg May 4, 2026

**”Almost anything” is a hope the way our country works now, changes for the better. It is depressing to consider “anything” could make it worse.

***”In fact”? What does that really mean? And where did it come from? Blame the French, again, and their use of “en fait” to mean a fact or action. Bet we all use “in fact” these days without thinking about what it means.

****I hope. If someone else owns this joke, let me know and you will get an essay giving you the credit. With so many of us thinking, it is hubris to think any thought original, right?

Vexes and Exes

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Per the internet: “Vex is a verb meaning to annoy, frustrate, worry, or cause difficulty to someone, often through minor or persistent provocations.”

Is there any word better to describe our current President? He vexes us. He is vexacious(sic). A persistent annoyance. Why? Ask him. Ask him why his name has to be on everything. Ask him why he needs to make the 250-year-old seat of our government look like Mar-A-Lago. As the national debt climbs, wars rage, and government shuts downs are the norm, he has the time and the money to build ballrooms, gold-plate the White House, rename buildings, centers, and traditions using tax-payer money, and hire anyone to do anything for his Cabinets. DOGE, my ass. The OBBB, (One Big Beautiful Bill) is starting to take effect. That’s vexing. As Our President Plays Golf (OPPG), million-dollar drones are launched at minor but irritating enemies. And so many bombs have been bombed OPPG asks for $1.5 TRILLION….TRILLION in his new budget to replace the ordinances heroically liberating Iran and saving us from the nuclear bomb they have been “two weeks away” from since…1995? Can’t remember, but you can find 30 years of videos by hawkish politicians about how Iran is either two weeks away from a nuclear weapon or their nuclear capabilities have been “obliterated” by the previously mentioned bombs. Not only vexing but dizzying.

AI says I can use “vex” as a noun as long as I don’t mind sounding old-fashioned.*

So OPPG and my ex-girlfriend are Vexes, capitalized to make them Proper Nouns, a more accurate description than common nouns.** Why do I lump them both into the newly created Dustbin of Vexes? Neither of them give a shite about me. Or you, probably.

Our Vexator In Chief only cares about people who have money, mainly so they can give it to him, while my ex doesn’t care about me at all…for anything. If God offered the chance to get even with one Vex it would be a tough decision to let God rain his wrath on either of them, since it means the other might escape unscathed.  Yes, I should ask for World Peace. Maybe by the time God grants me the “The Option” my level of vexation will have un-vexated enough to be more magnanimous.*** And unselfish.

And there is another vexation: why should I/we have to be unselfish (and magnanimous) when our leaders and lovers won’t be? For 74 years I’ve been a model citizen, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous–and occasionally decent–politicians. Why am I getting this one, this vexator, so late in life, in my golden years?

Same for the ex. After 50 years of meandering, I settled on her to be “The One”, and truly enjoyed 20 years of stray-free monogamy until she left me with to suffer OPPG and loneliness in my mid-70s. It took her that long to realize what a terrible person I was?

I’ll be obvious for all who have trouble with nuance, or possibly passive-aggressive behavior: Any females reading this looking for a good-old-fashioned man?

I should have thought of this sooner and saved dating site money. Hope I remember to cancel the subscription.

A crappy final thought that literally just came to me: did I vex the ex for those 20 years?

Also, a warning. yesterday I stored a package of cheese in the silverware drawer.**** Let the games begin.

*There is no difference between “old” and “old fashioned” when you are—actually-old.

**Proper nouns are specific. Common nouns are not. No extra charge for the grammar lesson, but you owe me.

****And took an hour to find it, which included asking Ai if the cheese was still okay to eat. It was Extra Sharp Cheddar,

***Ai or google “magnanimous” and ponder the lengths you’d go to elect a leader like that word.

*****Footnotes out of order. It’s a cognitive test. How did you do?

Ai, Ai, Oh No…

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Apologies to those who know the story and song of Old Macdonald’s Farm. He had all sorts of animals, but we never know if he is happy about it*. How could he be happy with all those animals to feed? He must have been a billionaire. Ai says there is no real ending to the Old McDonald’s Farm song, it can go on until the singer gets bored or tired or runs out of animals.

Life kind of feels like the song, now. Except for a new animal every verse substitute a new trouble, war, or unhappy event. As an essayist, it is harder and harder to come here and write something happy, something peppy, something uplifting. It is so easy to write WTF essays, “why is this happening essays”, and warning essays. Probably shouldn’t use the word easy, because writing about what is wrong in the world (in my opinion), is not easy, it’s annoying, and seems pointless. It’s not even cathartic anymore. There is a sense the turbulence of this world is not necessary, and that my golden years should be full of—at least—apathy, and not despair, unhappiness, anger, resentment.

I tried to sign up for DirectTv, yesterday but their website wouldn’t approve any of the 5 credit cards I tried. “Oops! There is a problem. Please try later.” The Ai chat bot took all my information, guided me to the website, and walked me though every step to get me to where I already was and then Ai asked: “And what does your screen say?” Oops. I asked for an agent and after a 5-minute wait one came into the chat and typed: “So how can I help you?” I typed “Oops! There is a problem. Please try later.” And the rep started by typing the same questions the Ai bot did. Hey! This is progress? This is better?

See how easy it is to complain?

 This essay will be an effort to not complain. I vow to find more positive things to write about, more good news to share, more ideas to inform or uplift, not brow beat or spotlight anger. Yes, most of the usual space has been used up already with the normal bleating, but there is still room for a few paragraphs of light.

The Rich have taken over the United States and will soon take over the world. And they don’t give a crap about anyone Not Rich. How can they be stopped?

Sorry. Old habit. As a retired person my days are my own to shape and one of my favorite times of those days is 2pm to 3pm. I recline on my favorite couch, put my tablet on my chest, and listen to NPR. The hour begins with 15 minutes of news and then the VoxPop show cuts in and a gentleman named Ray Graf opens his mouth. This only happens Mondays through Fridays, but VoxPop is enough to make a day better, and have that “better” last for at least the hours until VoxPop comes back on the airwaves. Ray has a way of yakking that is not only entertaining, but informative, and…bright. Happy. Content. Unhurried. Almost therapeutic. No more will be said except he is not available in all NPR areas. Wait, maybe VoxPop is, and can be heard over the wonderfully cluttered Internet of Ideas and Chaos. The station broadcasting Ray Graf’s VoxPop is WAMC, out of Albany NY. It’s unclear if anyone outside New York State can get his show, but try, and get back to me, will you? Google or Ai “VoxPop with Ray Graf” and see what happens in your area. I’ve not said much about the actual show, hoping the mystery will pique your curiosity and get to you look for it, so…do it. Now. It might get you off the snide** of current life and back into the gentle but challenging currents of real life. Real normal life, not Rich and Powerful Life.

Sorry. Old habits die hard.

*Or what tense of verb to use. Is Old McDonald alive? Dead? Mythical? The song does say he “had” a farm. Did it get repossessed? Fall into ruin? Or does he and the farm come back to life every time we sing about him? And where is this “farm”? And why the hell should we care?

**The Internet of Ideas and Chaos is often what we make it. Google snide, for example, and enjoy.

A Word About Writing the Words

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I am a writer. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads this or if the whole world reads it. It was written by me, at my desk, typing away and the whole world can go feck off.

Well…not really. But what exactly IS this?

In the modern world this is called blogging, and this is a blog and you’d call me a blogger. It is an attempt to…hold on. Let’s call this new work an essay. That makes me an essayist. What is an essayist? A blogger who wants to be called a fancier name and not be confused with someone who carries an axe.

An essay (nee “blog”) is a short form work that tries to make a point using facts, embellished facts, truths, half-truths, hearsay, and copied reference material, often generated by Ai, with one of two original ideas added to the mix. Basically, it’s a written rant yielding a huge helping of mental relief.

I write fiction, too, with two books of short stories languishing in the public domain while hundreds more hide in digital closets waiting to see if anyone will find them. A good writer writes for him/her/their self and hopes to be discovered. A successful writer does the same but then finds a way to promote themselves, like raising their hand and yelling in a crowded, quiet library.

Since you’re really into this essay, is there a question you’re thinking about? Like, what is the difference between an essay and a work of fiction? Hm. Good question. (Picture the scratching of the head and a light bulb.) Short stories and essays are a lot alike, but the audience is different.

Short stories can be about anything, using anything, to tell a story about anything, tailored to an audience who might be interested. (Key word: Might.)

Essays are focused more on a personal point trying to be clarified, and often hope to reach an audience of the entire population of humankind.

The audience’s inspiration is the most important driver of either work. A writer may want you to know about how his Uncle Carl’s hatred of vegetables influenced the writer’s digestive life. Who would be interested in that besides relatives, dietitians, and the occasional crazy person?

But if a writer wants all of you to know why money doesn’t grow on trees, the essay is The Thing.

Since this is the morning after the Super Bowl and the room is still spinning, let’s get back to the first paragraph of this essay. I’ll give you a second.

There is an aspect of writing more profound than any point or story, whether read or unread by everyone or no one: writing is good for mental health. Everyone should be doing it. For over 60 years writing has been a constant friend, companion, shoulder-to-cry-on, and unjudging(sic) confidant. There is no secret, no shame, no remorse, no regret you can’t share with writing. When you sit with yourself and write about your problems they transfer from you to this white, unspoiled page, and something happens to those troubles. They may go away, they may not, but they will be easier to live with, and here are some extra words so I don’t end a sentence with a preposition.*

Let’s end with a proposition: You write and see what happens. Use crayons and construction paper. A computer and Calibri font. Anything.** And remember this when you do it: no one has to see it if you don’t want them to, so don’t leave your masterpiece lying*** around on the floor.

Maybe the next essay will be about poetry, iambic pentameter, and rhythm…the only birth control method with no vowels.

*Ai says ending with a preposition has become normal. I resist.

**But DO NOT USE speech to text. The time it takes for your brain to think of something and your fingers to type it accurately are magical moments. Don’t short-change yourself and not feel them.

***Grammar nuts: you thinking it should be “laying”?