Shipwrecked & Comatose

One of pop culture's biggest controversies: Should Andie have gone for Duckie, or did she make the right choice in taking Blane back? Pretty in Pink was one of the defining movies of my generation, and nearly forty years after its release, GenXers still discuss it at length. I belong to a couple of Gen X groups on social media and the topic is often tossed around. The opinions are always sharply divided. After reading multiple arguments about this movie, I realized I had something to say about the topic. ( If you haven't seen it, or don't at least know the plot, click here . I won't explain it in this post .) You want to know what's strange? When I saw the movie as a teen, I was Team Blane.*  Why would I be rooting for Blane? I admit he was the kind of guy I found physically attractive in high school, but he also represented the kind of people I hated. He was too good looking to be trustworthy. I knew boys in high school who came from those rich-boy cliques like th

The United States has never been more divided. This divided country will fall apart. Are we headed for another civil war? It's hard to listen to any political commentary these days without hearing about how "divided" the country is. The United States isn't united. It's an assemblage of different groups who all have different goals and dreams and lifestyles and values. It's urban again rural, liberal against conservative, Christians against non-Christians, native-born against immigrants. The entire country is a powder keg of hate waiting to blow because nobody can agree on anything anymore. Is it really? The mass media and all the various political commentators feed us these stories about American division every day. They can't be wrong, can they? It's not as if the news outlets, owned by giant media conglomerates and run by billionaires have any stake in keeping us afraid, right? The media are all reporting the facts and there is no advantage to making

Am I obsessed with food?  Whenever I see those Salonpas commercials on TV, and the commercial ends with a tag for the company that sells it, I hear the VO sing, "Hisamitsu" and all I hear is "Tiramisu." ### In case you're not convinced, I was typing a client's name in an email today whose last name was Duncan. I instinctively spelled it Dunkin first. ### Facebook is full of dumb stuff, but if there is one game on Facebook that is beginning to irk me above all others, it's "Nametests" and similar apps. In most cases, the user is asked to select an image or a answer a short question, and it spits back some excuse for wisdom or tells you your fortune, or maybe provides some supposedly deep insight into the kind of person you are. This is usually along the lines of, "You have been through a lot of difficulties, which made you a strong person, but you are still vulnerable," or "You have a heart of gold, but if anyone crosses you or mi

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley." - Robert Burns The above quote is one I have returned to often in the past four years. I am an obsessive planner, and I often have to remind myself not to count on the world aligning with my latest schemes. (Which I suppose brings me to another similar quote by John Lennon. " Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans ." My last post was a long rambling beast about how I was going to deal with the situation of having nothing new to do in 2024. It was such a beast I can't imagine anyone read it to the end (although as of writing this post, it has 34 views).  The TL:DR of the post was I had nothing exceptional to look forward to. Life was a big blank slate. I had no plan. I was going to have to learn to embrace uncertainty and take life as it comes. My path was to simply live one day at a time and take the best possible care of myself. I would be mindful, be healthy, exercise and

  Whenever I see men who are "sneakerheads", who own multiple pairs of pricey sneakers, I want to scream to the world that men no longer have the right to say women are the ones who are overly obsessed with shoes. ### Why do pen manufacturers continue to put those shirt clips on their pens? I even have them on my styli. What's the point? Everyone always fiddles with them and breaks them off. How many people still put pens in their shirt pockets? Let's retire the clip and find something else to fidget with. ### KEVIN: It's kind of early for chocolates RACHEL: What a strange thing to say - as if chocolate has a timeline ### Kevin is the most saintly husband to ever walk the earth. Why? Because for the first two or three weeks after my fall, I was almost completely unable to move my right arm. That meant he had to help me get undressed every night. It's not nice to make a guy always take his wife's clothes off and have it not end in the way such an action is

It's my least favorite season now. We are in the midst of the coldest and darkest days. It's easy for me to fall into a pessimistic state of mind.  My consolation is that winter is temporary. One reason I don't pack up and move to a warmer climate is because I take some enjoyment from watching the seasons change.  On one of my favorite opinion sites, OnlySky, Writer Adam Lee said it best. He calls this The Clearing Season . The world isn't dead. It's only sleeping. The sun is already on the ascent and making the effort to shine a bit more each day. The bare trees will be green again one day.  Maybe this is the time for me sit quietly and wait for my turn to bloom this year.  I say this because I want to talk about my New Year's Resolution today, which isn't a resolution at all (I ditched that word years ago ).  Resolve is a tricky emotion, which is why in this blog I often write about goals or plans at the beginning of the year rather than resolutions. You m

Why have cinnamon graham crackers become so hard to find?  ### Most of our fingers have alternate names. The first finger is the index or pointer finger. The fourth finger is the ring finger. The fifth finger is the pinky. But the middle finger is never anything but the middle finger. Why is that? Why doesn’t it have another name? Maybe I should give it one. The curse finger? ### I noticed today when my phone decides to show me a bunch of memory photos, no matter what the theme is, there are always more photos of food and drinks than anything else. I will leave that here. ### First the Ozempic commercial put Magic permanently into my head. Now Chevy trucks are infecting me with a Come and Get Your Love earworm. Well, David Paton seems to be enjoying the revival of his career. Let’s hope it does the same for Redbone. ### I wonder if George Glass was from Canada ### Further signs that I'm way too easily amused: It's so cool when I'm walking outside on a windy day wearing hoo