A to B through Z

Man, I really wanted this to be a light-hearted update about dumb things in my life that I enjoy. I'm less motivated to bang out a bunch of words about how neat Sonos speakers are since Ann was just diagnosed (or almost diagnosed) with a heart condition. Rad! We're past the really scary part of her collapsing and not knowing what was going on. Definitely in the "where do we go from here" phase. Or the "isn't it ironic that your sudden commitment to exercise and healthy living almost killed you" phase.  On top of everything else we also got the chance to be parents for 3 days, the details of which I might go into down the road when I'm sure that particular story has a happy ending. Suffice to say life is still coming at us all at once and from all angles. I'm a deeply pragmatic person. Whatever situation I'm in I can take in the basic facts, integrate them, and choose the best path forward. I do freeze in the initial moments though, and

This is something I wrote in early 2017 and lightly edited this week. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. How are things? Good! Well, you know...not really. I mean pretty good, considering. Those conversations I can handle, but my least favorite bits are the silences after a few minutes. Maybe I explained how mom was doing or how he died for the morbidly curious. The platitudes and the chit chat is done and there's just silence. I didn't know it at first, but I've slowly learned that this is where people feel something profound is supposed to go. Something the movies taught us has to happen, it's right there in the script. You're supposed to provide the neat bow on the tire fire that is your emotional state to assure all present that "everything happens for a reason" or "every cloud has a silver lining". I hate that silence. I wish I could say that I hope you never have to experience grief, but obviously that's impossible.

There are three types of racists in the world right now: 1) Your tiki torch march for hate kinda racists 2) Your overturn constitutional law by executive fiat to keep out brown people kinda racists 3) Your shrug and accept that this is your team and you’ll stick by ‘em kinda racists I swear to god I think I respect the first group more for at least being honest about who they are and what they want. If you vote straight ticket republican in November, I know by your works exactly where you stand. I hope Jesus finds you lukewarm and spits you out when you get to heaven. ---------------- As an oddly timed side note I'd like to keep this blog going with a decidedly less heavy-handed self-editing mode. In thinking about why I even started this blog years ago and why I would want to keep this going I couldn't come up with a good answer. Blogs are such a weirdly anachronistic appendix of the digital world. They don't really have a place because it's a diary t