writing

Things I Remember Blaming on Aging

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I invented a new curse word for a driver who turned left without a turn signal, but had to use the same word when my own blinker wasn’t on.

One thing gets done at one time. No multi-tasking—or any multi-anything—for a senior. I made a perfect grilled cheese sandwich and marveled at its crispy, brown coating while I  put the cheese away in the silverware drawer. So…when I went to make another sandwich it took me two and one half days to find the cheese, and it only happened while putting away the cleaned utensils from the first sandwich. If you lost your cheese, would you look for it in the silverware drawer? Sorry for the personal question. And yes, the cheese was moldy.

It’s the same with scissors. I bought a second pair and try* to treat them both like newborn babies.** If I didn’t, scissors would be left on the top shelf of the closet where the shelf lining was cut and not be found for some other task until more shelf lining was needed. A second pair has saved time, since it (almost) guarantees one pair will be in the drawer they are supposed to be in.

Prescription drugs are impossible without a chart of some kind, and a writing instrument (of some kind) to mark the chart. And mnemonic helpers. During the months of surgeries and treatment for The Calamities there, were pages of drugs to take with numbers, times, and descriptions. Thank God. Now, I take just two and a plastic marked tray keeps everything in order.  One has to be taken one hour before a meal and the other one two hours after a meal. I labeled them 1B, for one Before, and 2A, for 1 After. I think that’s-be right back.

We’re good. Checked the scissors and cheese while I was gone, too.

It isn’t that the brain is getting smaller, is it? Isn’t it just that there is so much happening, and we all only have so much computing power?

Whether that’s true or not, even suspecting anything is amiss fulfills its own whatever. I went out one time without my keys. One time in 74 years.*** Now, before the apartment door is opened, there is a moment of reflection to make sure my keys are in my hand. Other needs are checked, too, the wallet, phone****, and the thing for whatever errand I’m running…it’s hard to return unneeded shelf-lining to Walmart if you leave the lining in your apartment and remember it halfway to…where was I going?

So, “possible” memory loss is a tough issue. For one thing, what if we forget the “baseline” memory of youth? How would we identify and analyze memory loss in Old Age? And who among us trusts a complete (?) stranger who comes up to us and asks: “Don’t you remember me?”

One thing I know for sure is memory “retrievability” has slowed. It took me about 2 hours to remember Roger Federer, my tennis hero, the other day. If we just be patient and don’t waste computing time/brain time wondering why Roger Federer is not on the tip of our tongue, we will eventually see the memory is there, it’s the “indexing” that might have vanished.

But…wait…isn’t that memory loss?

*Try. The most used word, these days. Try to do this, try to do that, and try to remember to remember to try.

**As a 74-year-old Great Grandfather I have NEVER misplaced a baby. That I know of. Or was told about.

***I was a driving prodigy from a young age.

****A sharp-eyed reader may remember an essay about The Man Bag, the perfect tool for remembering everything. And who carried a phone in the 1970’s? A Wallet? We stuck a $20 bill in the pocket of our denim jeans and went out the door. At least that’s what I remember…

IV, OV, TB, BB, and More?

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A long time ago in dog years, I postulated and pontificated (PP) about an Inner Voice (IV), an Outer Voice (OV), and The Body (TB), as parts of my physical and psychological makeup. It was declared that IV was shy and slightly impetuous, OV was measured and careful, and TB went along for the ride, doing what it was told by one of The Voices (TV).

It is emblematic of the constant growth of human intelligence that I PP*, now, about one more important, needed, part of my existence. As the months passed since IV, OV, and TB entered the Lexicon of The Essay, much thought was done by all** about how my “system” actually works. My old remarks about thought, action, and reaction suggested IV and OV fought for supremacy when in situations they did not inherently agree, and the winner then communicated the “Deemed Proper” (DP) action to TB.

But that is not how “we” (WE) work.

Since WE have (nearly) completed recovery from The Calamities, certain facts revealed themselves and caused this revision: IV and OV do not settle their own arguments. It took months of navel-gazing to finally understand “something” else was making the Final Decision (FD) for each circumstance.

Let’s review using the doughnut (DN) example from the past essay. My IV says it wants to eat the last DN. My OV says I don’t need it and urges me to be considerate, someone else might want it. My TB says it doesn’t care either way and can “find a place for it” if WE eat it. See? Who makes the FD about the DP action of the DN?

Much like an algebraic equation, the answer to the DN question is obvious: the DP FD is made by a Big Brain (BB). BB*** acts like an umpire and does not create circumstances causing the need for an FD. BB receives input from IV, OV, TB, and the outside environment (OE) before determining the scope and ramifications DP actions mandated by the FD will have on the OE as well as TB. When all the appropriate arguments are submitted and analyzed, BB will reach a FD and communicate important messages (IM) to TB who will then distribute IMs to its subsidiaries to begin the DP action.

BB then receives IMs back from TB about progress and final results (FR), plus an after action review (AAR). AARs are always needed so BB can analyze and make future FDs about FRs when IV and OV need clarification or future guidance (FG). FG is extremely important to avoid future mistakes (FM). Imagine the DN example if IV convinced BB to let TB eat a whole dozen DNs at one time. FG would inform BB that IV’s instincts about eating that many DNs would be an FM and should be avoided by all future FDs to prevent DN eating**** from being a DP action in the future.

OMG I am so lost with this…BRB when my BB is cleared of all FS.*****

*Giggle if you have to. It’s ok.

**Yes. All.

***BB is technically a part of TB. Much like an arm or a leg, for example. While there is Gray Matter (GM) that houses the BB, it is all, structurally speaking, part of TB, though self-governing and independent of TB influence when it comes to DP FDs. BB is an office inside a larger, corporal structure. The office (TO) is on the top floor.

****Technically DN over-eating. WE still need some DNs.

*****Fecking Shite.

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.

Fathers Day, with no apostrophe or apology

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Aging is interesting. Not to the young, of course, but there is a point in everyone’s life when we “suddenly” realize we are aging, if not “aged”. It is what happens after the realization we will talk about, here.

Fathers Day 2026 was an interestingly humorous celebration.

I probably learned about Fathers Day way back in The Early Years. Fathers Day was first proposed in 1909 in response to Mother’s Day.* Fathers Day was officially “recognized” in 1966 by Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon made it a National Holiday in 1972. I was unaware of these dates because in 1963 I was learning how to shelter under a wooden desk if nuclear missiles were headed to upstate New York.** In 1972, I was either drunk, blazed, or courting the second or third “love of my life”. Honoring dad was the last thing on my mind. It didn’t help the holiday that my father and I had a unique relationship during my 1960’s teen years, and I wouldn’t have honored him, anyway.

It’s safe to use “aging” as an excuse for not remembering the first time Father’s Day caused my day to be about someone other than me.

But here’s the thing: the concept of unimportance has floated through my conscience many times over the last few months. It started with the China documentary where the repeated cycles of Dynasties rising and falling over hundreds of years led to millions of people—perhaps billions—dying simply because they were of the wrong family, cult, religion, or geographic area. What was important to those people? Did they have scrapbooks of family photos to pass down to survivors? Were their deaths heroic? Were there any survivors? Did they have special days for Fathers and Mothers?

And then there is politics…the rise of one party, the decline of another, and the passing of time making us forget all about The Whigs of the 1830s-1950s. And remember when Republicans were Democrats and Democrats were Republicans? And who can forget The Teapot Dome Scandal and Tammany Hall shenanigans, corruption at its finest. You remember, right?

Of course, you don’t. It doesn’t matter, now. Any of it. So what does matter?

National Geographic put out a wonderful chart detailing the rise and fall of “civilizations” through the ages. The Romans. The Incas. The Mayans, The Greeks. What do they all have in common? They’re gone, and we dig in the earth to find about as much as we can about them so we can…make the same mistakes?

It isn’t the rest of the World that forgets the lessons of the past, it is us, individually. We don’t pay attention. Even worse, we have the hubris to think we are smarter than The Romans. Even smarter than the Greeks.*** And we work harder than the Mayans. And we know better what to do with the Land than The Mohicans.****

It was Fathers Day last Sunday and the current local family met for burgers, beers, hot dogs, potato salad, and farting around the table. Of note, there were two whole barbecued chickens none of us had room for, even after passed gas made more space.

But as I sat there, watching kids, grand-kids, and talking about a great-grand-kid 1,100 miles away, the idea of how temporary life is swung into view with a thud. I’ve personally known over 50 Fathers Days, thanks to a young marriage and fatherhood. Is there any difference from the first to the last? And how many will the young people around the table experience?

I’m not sure where this essay is heading, but the Fathers Day tableau gave me something besides a sore butt from an uncushioned wooden chair: my time on this earth has been okay and would be okay, no matter what happens in the next few years. I am headed for an activity billions of people have already done, and everyone at the table would eventually do the same.

“It isn’t the destination, it’s the journey.” Please google this phrase. Ask Ai about it. They have more resources, space, and ability to explain it. For even more fun try it this way: “It isn’t the journey, it’s the destination.” And don’t believe everything you read.

*With an apostrophe. Google it. Or Ai, it.

**Don’t laugh. The air base sending B-52s to Russia was 5 miles down the road.

***We must be smarter because so many of the Greeks were homosexual and bi-sexual. How long can a civilization last with activity like that? 4,500 years?

****Google them. I dare you.

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 Difference Does It Make?

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Forget the “it” in the title. We already rode that dead horse. And forget the “that” in that sentence. Why are pronouns and miscellaneous “determiners” so necessary and confusing? Ask Ai about them both so we can move on to another subject.

Memory, and its (again?) attendant issues, are on the mind, today.

It is easy to think of things to essay about. (Yes, essay can be used as a verb. Ask your own Emma.) Life itself can be written about ad nauseum, and an inquisitive mind and active fingers can even exhaustively explicate dust particles.

(Short break for Emma’s Ai dissertation on Dust.)

The problem is most Great Ideas come at inconvenient times. No, not the bathroom, but when zooming up Route 365 To Turning Stone at highway speeds whose numerical value is determined by a possible law enforcement presence. Or trying to get to sleep. Imagine being tired and a “great idea for an essay or story” pops into your head. Do you get up? Do you wait for the next pee break? Do you stay completely still and hope sleep comes immediately?

I used to get up but after a “certain age” getting back to sleep became a bigger problem than forgetting a Great Idea, especially with the Urination Schedule of The Senior Male already causing sleep interruptions. Great Ideas are a dime a dozen, or $2.25 per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for April 2026. No. I will not research a true local and current price. It might not be good news. And it’s best to lay (lie?) still and wait.

Where were we? Great Ideas and how to manage them. Many times I’ve solved the world’s problems while watching for early morning, road-crossing deer during the flight up Route 365 at excessive and probably unsafe speeds. There is no way to let go the wheel and take notes or drive one-handed while glancing back and forth from phone to windshield. Understandably for a senior, by the time I land in the parking garage 5 minutes later, The Great Idea is gone, lost in the swirling mists of history much like my ancient football career, the facts–if not lost–not to be relied upon if recovered.** Yes, I often channel Al Bundy.

If I’d had typed the **footnote here, I’d be done by now, with my eventual point only partly constructed:  if you want to remember something you have to…um…

Okay. We’ll head in another direction and act like the preceding never happened.

There is a lot to regret, miss, and moan about as things in our lives change and flex and swivel and slide down the backside of life.

But there are also interesting, beautiful, amazing, startling, and informative things, too, if we can remember to spend less time moaning about getting older.***

When watching documentaries (like the 8 hour one on China) you have to wonder if the people living in The Ming Dynasty had any time to enjoy life before millions of them died hundreds of years ago. Did they have any Great Ideas? If you know about ancient warfare, how did the losers of wars deal with the loss and the subsequent torture and “elimination” of themselves and their neighbors?

 History is full of Great Ideas.

Like, why were we given the necessary tools to ask and try to understand them?

Wouldn’t it be better to be that front monkey getting groomed?****

*Where does all the dust come from? What is it made of? Who named it dust? Is a living thing or inanimate detritus? OMG, do NOT google or Ai this word…unless you have time…

**Except for the scholarship to a great university that lead to the best year of my life in 1970-1971. Hey, that’s a Great Idea for next time!

***It is so interesting to hear a 50-year-old complain about aging. Or a 40-year-old. It makes a 74-year-old feel so fecking smart. They should pass a law about when it’s okay to complain about age. ANY age. And who is They?

****An it and a that in one sentence. We’ve come a long way from grunts and farts.

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.

Three Sentences, Again, Everywhere

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It finally happened. I clicked a headline and opened a news article that was nothing but reader comments. Does the article writer deserve to  be called a writer?

A sitting president has finally decided to check the limits of his power over not just politics, but his own, personal gain. Since no one is stopping him, it is assumed they are benefiting, themselves, from the grift most often at the taxpayer’s expense. The 2025 Crusade to slash waste, fraud, and abuse has a new meaning in 2026.

The Ballroom is a perfect example of a well-known—and true—saying, with a slight modification. “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission” is now ” It is easier to ask for forgiveness I don’t care about rather than ask for permission I would ignore, anyway.” What a great lesson for all of America and the World.

Another news article used up several inches of space and moments of my life before the article mentioned any of the 5 Ws of “good” journalism: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. At this time in life nearly 90 per cent of the news crossing my screen is a waste of time. When did it become so hard to find facts?

Science news* is always interesting but modern science moves too fast. We learn much more in one day in 2026 than we even learned in one day in 2025. Is one human brain capable of keeping up with the millions of science brains finding out new things and correcting old things?

People have a science problem that might be caused by The Bible. The Bible has a beginning, an end, and the story never changes after hundreds of years. Science has a beginning, and end and a story too, but the story changes constantly. People need to know science is mainly consensus, and what science says today, is just what we/they KNOW today, and tomorrow might bring new ideas and new discoveries…like Aliens.

Even intelligent brains might wonder how the feck** do we teach science, then, if it is constantly changing? First, you don’t teach science, you expose it and inspire the reader/viewer to take up the journey. Second, you open your brain and think for yourself using currently available data***, and be open to that data changing.

Trying to wrangle thoughts into a short essay has proven too difficult on a sunny morning. I want to get out into the beautiful spring sunshine and feel the new grass between my toes. It’s a Wonderful Life.

Carpe herba!  Stringere gramen inter digitos meos!!!****

*From reliable sources. Like Legacy media, new media with editorial and collaborative structures, and almost any European source, including Australia and New Zealand. Feck opinion and understand bias.

**This word has such an interesting etymology. Emma of Ai says: ‘it is widely known today as a milder, more family-friendly version of a vulgar expletive…but has a rather varied history in Irish English.” Feck is also the root from which feckless is derived, which is hilarious, if you think too hard about it.

***Existing data, NOT existing opinion. “The world is not flat” is proven data, easily observed. “The world is flat” is opinion, unsupported by beautiful sunsets and sunrises not available in disc form. If the world was flat, we’d still have sunrises and sunsets, but they would be at the same time, worldwide.

****Studied and learned Latin in 1995. Since no one I know speaks or writes Latin, very little of it is remembered. All my current Latin is from Emma, my AI voice, and Foreign Language Companion.