My Facebook feed is filled with people declaring the sky is falling and that I ought not to question them by asking them to provide the legal definition of a war crime.
I infuriate them by asking them to walk me through how taking out a terrible terrorist is a definitive step into WWIII.
When they accuse me of being naive and or insouciant I shrug my shoulders and mull over responding with Suicide Is Painless or Apocalypse Now’s Ride Of The Valkyries.
Maybe I ought to flip to Wagner’s version, ya know the guy my dad told me my zaide referred to as an antisemite.
But given Wagner is dead and I am using it for my purposes I am good with it and if Wagner’s spirit don’t like it he can take on a corporeal form so I can tell him to go fuck himself and shove my boot up his ass.
Am I still pissed off or just ornery?
Yes.
Fuck if I know what Iran will do and whether the self serving buffoon in the WH has done something that will hurt us in the long run or help us.
The terrorist is dead and there are no tears to be shed and the best I can do is hope it turns out well.
The reason I ask the chicken little crew to define and explain is two fold.
It helps calm them down and understand what they are prattling on about and it helps me determine if I missed something.
Hysteria serves no one.
Got a few notes and comments from folks who tell me they aren’t hanging out around here because I don’t spend enough time writing about parenting any more and others who complain about other things.
Readers come and go–it is how it works.
I can spend my time trying to secure and save my readership by only writing about the topics that brought them in but the thing is that is really not any one thing.
There have been chunks of posts about writing and bushels about content marketing as well the handfuls about the perils of parenting.
Ideally people recognize we all evolve and understand some things are going to change because they have to.
The kids who provided me with funny and touching stories aren’t five, six or 11 anymore.
I can’t write about them the same way because they deserve to create their own digital footprint and I can’t share other stories here because of other privacy/boundary issues.
So if there are personal matters they are usually mine and it is my choice to put them out there. It is almost my choice to elaborate or not as well as to decide to not say a damn word in person or via telephone.
That last point needs to be reiterated, I don’t owe you an explanation because I wrote something. That is a line I hold for everyone from parent to child–I do not owe anything to anyone.
So if you ask me be forewarned I may not engage because in some areas you need to know as much as I think you need to know and no more.
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Speaking of feeling like the sky is falling I had a moment today when I wondered if I ought to interpret a conversation as such.
I wondered if maybe I ought to find a place to take cover and remembered there is no such place and walked back into the storm and planted my feet.
Can’t say whether I was right, wrong or somewhere in between but I did my best and prayed it was enough.
I think it exhausted me and that is why I didn’t have it in me to hit the gym.
Take that as an honest assessment and not an excuse, it just sucked me dry and the coffee I drank didn’t help.
But I did come around a bit and pumped out a few sets of push ups, not an ideal compromise but something is better than nothing.
I sold my house in LA in 2011 and for a long time had no interest in owning another.
That started to change a few years ago and there have been a couple of moments where I have wanted to have my own again.
Some of it is because I like the idea of owning property outright for investment and retirement purposes and some of it is because I sometimes get tired of landlords.
Or more accurately I want to be the one making decisions about what kind of maintenance/upgrades to do and when to call tradesmen in to fix things.
I don’t like being on someone else’s schedule.
But I also don’t mind not having the responsibility for fixing everything so there is that.
Which brings me to the question of how much house do I want or need at this point in life. Part of me very much wants a bigger place and to live a certain way but I don’t know if that is practical.
So another part says to consider downsizing in a few and trying to get something nicer that way.
Given there is no particular rush or timeline for such a move I don’t expect anything to happen any time soon, if at all.
Unless I win the lottery in which case I may pick up a few income properties…maybe.
Given that I rarely buy lottery tickets there is no reason to believe such a thing will happen soon but who knows.
Sometimes lightning strikes.
