Category Archives: Thoughts @ Large

•  Say you have a couple of years of extraordinary medical expenses, enough to surpass the 7.5% income threshold that lets you deduct some of them on your U.S. income tax return.  Then the next year or two, your medical expenses are still high, but not quite high enough to meet the deductibility threshold.  As a taxpayer, you can’t help but feel a bit disentitled at that point, even though you should be thinking, thank goodness I didn’t have as many medical expenses.

•  Lest you feel too sorry for yourself, consider: our friends in Great Britain can’t deduct any medical expenses from their income tax returns.  Because they have none to deduct.

•  Although this seems to come naturally to every dog-walker on the planet, I shouldn’t have to befriend your dog in order to make friends with you.  (That goes double for your cats.)  We’re human beings.  We evolved larynxes and language.  We shouldn’t have to rely on voiceless four-legged intermediaries to help us strike up conversations.

•  My spouse thinks our country needs a Robert Kennedy and that Biden is “too ho-hum.”  While I wouldn’t argue, I say we liberals can’t afford to eat our own at this point.  Biden did exactly what we needed him to do, which was to get Trump out of office.  That alone will satisfy me for a lifetime.  I cried with joy watching Trump’s plane take off for Florida.

•  I enjoy the satirist-commenter Bill Maher.  I like his observations and the way he crafts his jokes, even if his tone often misses my mark.  (Too many sex/scatological references — I don’t do that world.)  Thing is, whenever I mention Bill Maher, I always feel like I need to add a disclaimer about not agreeing with everything he says.  Probably because he once hosted a show called “Politically Incorrect” and is known to depart from the liberal line.  Nonetheless, Maher did an excellent piece the other night on how U.S. citizens’ lives are really improved — not by mobs wearing Guy Fawkes masks and wielding spray paint but by dedicated people who spend thousands of hours working on and within the system.  This totally-unexpected display of patriotism on his show almost brought me to tears.

•  My spouse bought us a ticket for the $730 million Powerball Lottery, but it was won by someone in Maryland.  That’s OK.  Swearing in two new Democratic U.S. Senators from Georgia and having a Democratic voting majority in the Senate feels like I already won.

•  When this song by Daft Punk (remember it? remember them?) was played on the radio way back when, I thought sure (and I’m not alone) that its title was “Mexican Monkey” and wondered what the hell that was all about.

•  It’s February.  Can you believe it?  A year ago at this time, Trump was being impeached.  No one was wearing masks.  The nation was divided.  Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, signaling an early Spring.  450,000 U.S. citizens had not died yet.

•  Headwear as signifiers of good, evil and authority.  Compare and contrast:

•  Not to embarrass my spouse (I would not dare do that, with Valentine’s Day coming up and all) but I appreciate her more every day.  We have been getting along better than ever,  even in these confined quarters.  For my part, I have been trying to be more aware of when I’m being a pill so I can stop being so.  For her part, as far as I know, she hasn’t had to be anything other than who she always is and d0 what she always does.  What hasn’t killed us has made us lovers.

• I was on a kick the last few weeks to reorganize our closets, toss old unused items, clean out the bookshelves and recycle clothes.  It dawned on me that this probably reflects an instinctual response to the chaos of our post-election days, my need for a sense of order amidst the crumble.  I must say that our own closet-cleaning has been nearly as satisfying as our national house-cleaning.

• Trump is plainly unhinged.  That a sociopath like Trump has tens of millions of followers is plainly frightening.

• The fact that I don’t engage on Facebook doesn’t mean I don’t care for you.  It just means that Facebook doesn’t get to decide how I interact with you.  On-demand mundane contact with one’s friends was never an expectation in pre-social-media days.  So what changed?

• My spouse idly asks me one evening, would I ever get a tattoo?  I say, sure.  So she asks, of what?  And I answer, of a tattoo.

• You know life is stressful when watching Judge Judy feels like an escape from reality.

• My spouse said she would vote for me to be president.  I responded that she is the one who should be president.  She said, that would be scary.  I said, not really, you would just have to know whether to single-click or double-click the nuclear button.  We both grimace.

• The CDC just announced its priorities for what segments of the population should get the COVID-19 vaccine first.  From what I see, my spouse and I won’t be eligible until March or April anyway.  That’s OK.  We have the resources, and patience, to stay safe.  Unlike those who have to go to work, who have to care for others, who have to interact with the public, who have to keep the cash flow going to live somewhat-normal lives.  I don’t envy Biden.  Most of America is impatient.

• That the Beatles were a tight band, even at the end, can hardly be disputed after watching this video of the 1969 rooftop performance of Don’t Let Me Down.  What is disappointing, however, is that the late keyboardist Billy Preston, practically the fifth Beatle at that time, has less than two seconds of video airtime in a song that was carried by his performance.  My point: The Beatles were no exception in how egos rule in the music business, just as they do in every other creative sphere.

•  I still find it remarkable how humans developed the means to make and transmit sounds using pulses of electrons — not to mention our ability to comprehend what electrons are.

•  My spouse and I have been homeowners for over 40 years.  After we bought our first home, Mrs. Glassey, the departing owner, graciously left behind several gardening tools, among them a pitchfork, a garden rake, a sod spade and a round-point shovel.  I use them all to this day.  These implements have both heft and history.

Trouble is, I now have doubts about the pitchfork.  The last time I used it to loosen some plants for transplanting, its wooden shaft creaked and crackled, warning me that the next sound I would hear, if I were to strain any harder, would be a terminal snap.

Since then, I have eased off but have not stopped using the pitchfork — nor have I thought about buying a new one.  Because of its heritage, it is now pretty much a ceremonial tool.  Is this not the height of irrationality?  Do any of you have such objects?

•  This week, the J. M. Smucker Company, the well-known maker of jams and jellies, rolled out a new corporate logo and, along with it, an elaborate description of what the logo’s various shapes and colors represent:

“The red berry shape reflects our heritage and the values the company was built on,” said creative director Kara Buckler.  “The green shape is our innovative mindset and ability to pivot to any challenge.  The darker green represents our growth, teal is our people and culture, and purple represents the creativity that … will propel the company forward.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs during this pandemic, but somehow, bullshit artists like Kara Buckler manage to get paid, more so for the bullshit than the art.  For them, it’s just one more thing to jam down consumers’ throats.

•  When it comes to romantic tic-tac-toe / Some people make more exes than ohs.

•  We no longer need to get worked up over hypocrisy by politicians, now that the crime of hypocrisy has been lessened to simple misdemeanor.  As we know, the usual sentence for misdemeanors is community service.  And community service is an excellent resume item if you decide to run for office…   Oy!  This could be a problem.

•  The other day, my spouse came up with a clever idea for a new fashion item: day-of-the-week underwear for men.  Already been done, you say?  Well, what makes her idea different, and more practical, than other day-of-the-week underwear is that every pair says “Saturday” — being that guys only change them once a week anyway.

•  Whether we are with family, friends or strangers, I like asking others what they’ve been doing for fun, their current aspirations, books they’re reading, etc.  Things that touch upon their mental/creative lives and provides them an opportunity to reflect in a different way than the usual, “How’s work going?”

This not only shows care for the other person but often ignites an interesting discussion.  However, as these discussions usually go, (a) I rarely get asked questions about myself, and (b) the conversations generally drift off to impersonal topics like the news, weather, children/grandchildren, television, Netflix.  While my spouse likes to talk about children and grandchildren, she generally agrees that she gets asked few questions about herself.

I have pondered this.  Am I just narcissistic?  Do I already volunteer so much information about myself that I kill interest and leave no room for questions?  Or are people just not comfortable asking personal questions, even of those that they know?  Or does it not even occur to folks to reciprocate?

As Fred Rogers said, “I’m talking to you, so right now you are the most important person to me.  Our conversation is the most important thing to me right now.”  It’s too hard to be like Jesus was, but I don’t think it’s beyond me to be more like Fred Rogers, or at least try.

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