Entry 564: Toothless People

The title of this post is cribbed from Weird Al's parody of Mick Jagger's "Ruthless People."  It's minor Al -- perhaps his most obscure spoof.  The original song was never close to being a hit.  (It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.)  It's from the soundtrack of a movie of the same name that I think was pretty successful when it came out, but has been mostly forgotten today.  Apparently it was Bill Pullman's film debut.  Honestly, browsing that link, I'm surprised to see Bill Pullman is still alive.  I thought I remembered him dying a few years ago.  Am I committing the classic Bill Pullman/Bill Paxton blunder?  Ah, yes indeed.  Bill Paxton died in 2017 of a stroke caused by a heart condition.  RIP Chet.

Anyway, I'm not toothless now, but I do have one less tooth than I did in my last entry.  I had #5 yanked out my mouth -- and I do mean yanked.  The periodontist literally took a pair of pliers and pulled it right out.  I don't know what I was expecting -- laser surgery? -- but not something that primitive.  Whatever.  It got the job done, and I didn't feel a thing.  I do now, though.  It kinda hurts.  I suppose that's to be expected, but it makes me nervous.  The entire purpose of doing this was to make things feel better.  If that area is still going to bother me, I might as well have left it in and saved myself the hassle and the expense.  But we will see.  The hope is without that tooth in there constantly irritating everything it will heal, I just need to give it some time.

The hole in my head isn't super noticeable, thankfully because the lab totally botched my "flipper" (a retainer with a prosthetic tooth on it).  It didn't fit at all, so I had to go back to the dentist and get another molding taken, and that's now with the lab (a "rush job," I've been assured), and we will see if they get it right this time.  In the meantime, I'm rockin' the gap.  It's not really a big deal, though.  Like I said, it's not totally obvious, and mask mandates are still in effect almost everywhere indoors, so it's mostly covered up in public, anyway.

In other health news, my arthritic shoulder has been feeling noticeably better of late.  It's causing me less discomfort, and my range of motion is greater than it used to be.  It's still not right, not even close, but, hey, better is better -- that's what I've always said.

Speaking of better, I've started eating better.  As I've mentioned before, the belly is really getting too big.  I couldn't fit comfortably into a pair of shorts I bought last summer.  That's the line crossed.  I don't want to have to buy a new wardrobe.  Not going shopping -- that's my motivation to narrow the midsection.  It's almost all about the diet.  I hope to be able to take more exercise classes now that my gym has opened back up to near full capacity,* but it will all be for naught if I continue to eat a sleeve of Ritz between meals everyday.

*I felt like I was pretty good during quarantine, exercising mainly on my own, but then I took the strength and conditioning class at my gym on Monday, and it was like, Oh, right, this is what it's supposed to feel like.  For whatever, reason in-person classes with other people are so much better than anything I do by myself.

Here's my new diet.  I'm going to break it down for your benefit.  In the morning, I eat a 1/4 cup of oatmeal with blueberries and a tiny bit of sugar or honey.  I also eat a hard-boiled egg or drink a protein shake (milk, protein powder, peanut butter, half a banana).  For lunch, I eat protein and vegetables -- turkey slices and carrots with hummus, or eggs with peppers and onions (if I didn't eat an egg in the morning).  For dinner, I also eat protein and vegetables -- maybe a turkey burger (no bun) with avocado and tomato or chicken with asparagus.  Then at night I eat a small bowl of fruit with cottage cheese and a small bowl of granola and yogurt.  That's it.  No junk food, no snack food, no desserts.  If I get really hungry between meals, I'll have a few cashews.

So far, it's going pretty well (all four days of it).  It's spartan enough for me to shed some flab (hopefully), but not so spartan that I'll give up after a few weeks (hopefully).  Don't worry, I'll keep you all posted on my results.

Well, I didn't expect this post to turn into DG Health Watch: Spring 2021, but so it goes.

Until next time...

Entry 563: Long Weekend, Figuratively Speaking

Exhausting weekend -- fun, but exhausting.  A bunch of people came to town to celebrate the birthday of one of S's oldest friends, N1.  N1's brother, N2, drove up from North Carolina with his wife JN and his parents.  The four of them stayed with us and N1 (who lives in NYC) stayed with a friend who lives in my old neighborhood in DC.  Then, randomly, my brother-in-law was in the area visiting his parents (who live about an hour away in Maryland), so he came to visit Thursday evening, and it was a huge (by 2021 standards) get-together at our place.  All the adults are fully vaccinated, so it was a mask-free affair.  My first one in over a year, and I gotta say it felt pretty damn good.

It was a nice mix of people too.  Sometimes when you have two sets of visitors in town, it can be awkward to get everybody together -- like you'd rather just see each set separately -- but this wasn't like that at all.  The conversation was flowing all night.  We ate, some of us drank, and a good time, I believe, was had by all.

Well, except for one small niggling detail in the back of my mind.  I was nervous that at any moment I was going to get a whiff of sewage and find our utility closet filling up with with shit-water.  It happened again Tuesday night, and it feels like a ticking time bomb.  It's a good news, bad news situation -- or rather a good news, bad news, bad news situation.  The good news is that we finally diagnosed the problem; the bad news is that it's not fixed yet, and the other bad news is that fixing it is going to be a massive undertaking both logistically and financially.

The problem is that the main sewage line under our house is severely corroded.  In some places it's busted wide open and roots and dirt are causing clogs which are causing the disgusting backups.  The clogs will usually work themselves out, so everything ostensibly works fine, until the next major clog.  (Thankfully we didn't have one while people were here.)  So, we can either spend the rest of our lives dealing with these clogs, or we can do what we are going to do and nip it in the bud, bite the bullet, and get them replaced -- and all that takes is many thousands of dollars to hire a crew to rip up our carpet, jackhammer through our foundation, and replace the pipes.

It's all pretty irritating, but what can you do?

Even more irritating is that before we bought the house, we had a plumber come out with a camera and examine the pipes, and he didn't find anything.  Either a great deal of the corrosion happened over the past two years, or we unwittingly hired a plumber who isn't very good at his job -- either one is possible.

Anyway...

I also ate at a restaurant this weekend for the first time in forever.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I did technically eat at a restaurant last fall, but it was outside in a very socially-distanced manner.  This time it was also outside (open walls at least), but everybody was packed together.  Again, I gotta say,  it felt pretty damn good.  It was in a bustling part of the city, and people were out and about, and it was a lovely sight to see.

Some people still wear masks; some people don't.  It's kind of a weird time where nobody is exactly sure of the proper protocols.  I've pretty much ditched the mask outside.  I was ready to ditch it at my two-week-after-shot mark, but a lot of people still had them on, and I didn't want people thinking I was some sort of anti-mask Covid-denier.  (I fit the profile: white, middle-age, often clad in Cargo shorts.)  But now enough people don't wear them outside that this is not an issue.  Inside, I just play it by ear.  If I'm supposed to wear a mask or if everybody else is wearing a mask, then I will wear one, but I don't feel I need to.  Trust the science goes in both directions, and right now, from what I can gather, the science is that if you're vaccinated, you are extremely unlikely to get a serious case of the disease or pass it on to somebody else.  So that's what I'm going with.

In addition to gallivanting in mask-free areas this weekend, I also went to two baseball games, one for each son.  They went, okay.  I pretty much judge success or failure on whether or not they strike out when they're at bat.  In that regard, it was a 4-for-5 weekend.  Lil' S2 made contact on both his at-bats (it's coach-pitch, and if they miss enough times, they use a tee), and Lil' S1 put the ball in play on two of his three at-bats (it's machine-pitch, and if they miss enough times, it's a strikeout).  In none of the four cases did they hit the ball hard -- they were all weak grounders -- but so it goes.  My expectations are low.  I don't think I'm raising Vladimir and Wilton Guerrero here.

Youth sports are different now, and I don't think it's just my kids.  It's so much harder to get kids to play sports.  I think they just have so many more options and neighborhood culture is changed.  When I was a kid, the vast majority of sports were played on the street or at the playground, and rec leagues were a supplement to that.  Now, it's like rec leagues are the only time kids play, and only because parents "make" their kids do it.  I dunno -- maybe I'm wrong about this.  Maybe I'm remembering wrong or maybe it is just my kids.  But talking to other parents, it doesn't seem like it.  I'm not complaining, by the way, just saying.

Alright, the clock just struck eleven and I gotta get some good sleep tonight.

Until next time...

Entry 562: Four Things On My Mind

I had a weird dream last night.  This German mathematician I knew in Australia was performing a one-man stage show and I was in attendance.  He began to wild cheers, but then half the audience turned on him because he did something that wasn’t woke, and then the other half was defending him saying that art doesn’t have to conform to social justice rules.

I felt caught in the middle, and then he came up to me and said he was so glad I was here and that he and his girlfriend were going out to drinks with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after the show, and S and I should come along.  Kareem has long been a hero of mine (in the dream and in real life), so I was elated, and I figured that if he was okay with the show then I should be too.

Then my alarm went off.

It’s probably no coincidence that I randomly saw a picture of the German mathematician before I went to sleep, nor is it a coincidence that I’ve been thinking about language a lot lately.  I recently read an interview with James Carville on Democratic messaging, and I also regularly read some crossword puzzle blogs that are really into using woke terms for everything, so I hear it there also.

As I’ve mentioned before, I find myself siding more and more with the Carville’s of the world.  I don’t think this "faculty lounge" way of speaking actually advances any concrete social justice goals.  If anything, it works against the coalition building needed to advance them, because it alienates common people who don’t speak that way (which is Carville’s point).  Also, different people like different terms, even within the same group, so it’s impossible to appease everybody.  (See Latinx, e.g.)

The latest thing I saw making the rounds is the term “Mother’s Day” as being problematic, because it excludes trans men who had children.  Some people suggested “Birthgiver’s Day,” but then mothers of adopted children complained (which goes to the point about not being able to please everybody).  My feeling on it: Why not just expand your definition of mother in that context to include birth-giving trans men?  Done.  No change necessary.

But the reason, I suspect, that’s not satisfactory to a lot of the people who use Birthgiver's Day is that a new term is a big part of the appeal.  It's a way to signal to others that you’re part of the in-group.

And now for an obligatory disclaimer: I’m well aware that the types of arguments I make are similar to those right-wingers use to discredit the "woke libertards" or whatever.  But there are many big differences between them and me, the biggest of which is they are making bad faith arguments to whip up sentiment in favor of exclusionary policies, like the infamous bathroom bills.  I’m not doing that.  On the contrary, I support transgender rights on nearly every front.  I’m in favor of laws that protect transgender people’s right to employment and access to healthcare.  I’m against the bathroom bills -- really any laws that force people to conform to a gender they do not identify as.  I’m in favor of making transgender people a federally protected class.  I just don’t see how this attempt to cleanse language of its impurities advances the cause.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of politics and purity, Liz Cheney has been demoted in the Republican party for telling the truth about Trump's big election lie.  I'm here for Cheney on this.  I know she has a horrible voting record, and she supported her father who lied us into the biggest foreign policy debacle of my life (to put it mildly), but those things already happened and can't be undone by hating on her now.  She is one of the only Republicans who openly opposes Trump and his Big Lie, and she should be commended for that, full stop.  As Frederick Douglass once said, "I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong."  The older I get, the more that's my attitude in politics.

Cheney almost certainly can't win a short-term intra-party fight against Trumpism.  But what she can hopefully do is injury it in general elections in the medium-to-long term.  You can make a strong case that it was non-Trump conservatives who swung the election to Biden -- the "future former Republicans" as Pete Buttigieg calls them.  One of the weirdest things about the election is that Biden did worse than Clinton in Democratic strongholds, like big cities, but he did a little better in rural areas, and cleaned up in swing-y suburban districts.

Liberals who are hung up over supporting people like Cheney and Romney and Steele need to get over that ASAP.  We need people like them, even though we disagree on so much.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Lil' S1 got into some sort of scuffle at the playground the other day.  When I came home from the office, Lil' S2 said to me, "Daddy, guess what... Lil' S1 got beat up today."  So I asked Lil' S1 what happened.

Apparently, he was goofing off with a group of kids, and he made one of them mad somehow, so the kid charged after him.  Lil' S1 ran away but the kid eventually caught him and started roughing him up.  He was almost in tears telling me this, and he said, "I might have gotten really badly hurt, but W and A [his friends] were there to pull him off of me."

It was after school, and S was at the playground, but she only saw the aftermath.  She didn't seem to think it was that big a deal, and she's usually more protective than I am, so I think it was just some little kid bullshit.  The boy who did it probably does have some legit behavioral issues though.  Last year he brought a pocketknife to school, and then another time he got into a fight with a different kid at recess, and when the teacher called security to handle it, he climbed the fence and ran home.

I thought about talking to the kid's dad, who apparently was at the park also when this happened, but I don't want to make a big deal out of a little schoolyard scuffle.  Also, Lil' S1 seemed to think he had things under control.  In every school there are kids like this kid, and part of growing up is learning how to navigate them.  Also, I think he and Lil' S1 are kinda friends (frenemies?).  I remember being that age.  You'd be fighting one minute and playing the next.

I also thought about trying to teach Lil' S1 some self-defense, but I don't know if it would do any good.  He might not like it, and even if he did, he just doesn't have that little-kid aggression in him.*  He's a sweet, friendly boy, and that's fine.  Being sweet and friendly can work in life.  Sometimes I worry about him being too naive (he once told me he's friends with everybody in his class, which can't possibly be true), but some things he has to learn on his own.  All you can do as a parent sometimes is hope for the best, right?

*It's very telling that he ran from the kid.  I never would have run from a fight against a classmate.  I would have fought with tears streaming down my face.  And I also would have been too prideful to ever admit to anybody, especially my parents, that I got the worst of it, even if I did.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

You might have noticed above that I said I came home from the office.  I've been trying to go in at least once a week.  Things are maybe, hopefully, kinda opening up again -- for realsies this time.  Fingers crossed.

Until next time...

Entry 561: A Post, Real Quick-Like

Probably a shortish entry today.  I have a few other things I want to do, and I can already feel my brain-power draining as the evening inches toward my bedtime.  S is away for the night again.  This time it's literally just the night.  She will probably be back before I get up tomorrow.  She went to help out some friends of hers who just had a baby.  She agreed -- actually, she volunteered -- to take an overnight nanny shift so that they can get some sleep.  Now, that is being a good friend.

As I understand it, this couple really needs the help.  Their entire journey to get this kid has been a struggle.  They went through multiple rounds of IVF, and when that failed, over the course of several years, they got an egg donor.  Then the baby came out premature and super tiny.  They had to keep him in the NICU for a while after he was born, and although I don't think it ever got super serious, it was definitely worrisome.  Then when they finally got to take him home, it was in the middle of quarantine, so nobody was available to help out, and given how (understandably) worried they were about his health, they didn't want any outsiders coming in, anyway.  So, it was all on them for a while -- like, totally all on them.  Also, they're both in their 40s (the guy might even be 50), which isn't a huge deal, but I think it does matter a little bit -- energy levels and whatnot.

S has been dying to see this kid since he arrived and she's now fully vaxxed and I'm sure the couple appreciates the help, so it's wins all around.  And I have to say, she's a better person than me to stay the night.  I certainly don't mind helping out, but I'm more of a during-the-day type of guy.  How about a nap?  Naps are nice.  I can give you a nap.

Which reminds me: I do not miss those awake-at-all-hours stretches of new parenthood.  We had it easier than most couples, because S's mom stayed with us for several months immediately after each of our kids was born, and it was still really difficult.  Plus, it's not like the kids were perfectly sleep trained when she left.  It was years before they would let us sleep through the night -- and even now it's hit-or-miss with Lil' S2.  Sometimes he will wake up in the middle of the night and just start screaming for S -- or in the morning, he will climb into bed with me and just roll around restlessly.  I'm like, "C'mon, dude.  I got an hour left until I need to get up -- a whole hour -- please leave me in peace."  And then he will say, "no," and roll around some more.

But such mornings are getting further and further apart.  Soon they won't exist at all, and I will wonder where all the time has gone, and lament the fact they are gone.  Nah... probably not.  I really like sleeping in the morning.

Until next time...

Entry 560: Olio And Applesauce

My in-laws (including sister in-law) have come and gone.  They were here for nearly a month, and they left a few days ago.  S also is out of town -- she went on her first post-quarantine flight to visit some friends in SoCal -- so it's just me and the boys.  When they're in school or asleep, it's just me, and it's weird to go from such a crowded house to such a quiet house.  I prefer the crowded house, even if it is a bit, well, crowded.

When S's mother is here, she takes over the kitchen.  Half her luggage is food and cooking supplies (seriously).  Overall, I don't mind, on the contrary, I like it, because she's such a good cook.  But of course there are times when I just want to quickly make some coffee and get on with my day, and then it's nice to have the place to myself.  Also, she will leave behind insane amounts of leftovers and ingredients I don't even recognize, let alone know how to use.  Like, there was a Tupperware of this sticky, flaky brown stuff on the counter, and I was thinking, "What am I supposed to do with this?"  Usually I slough it off to S (who often doesn't know what it is either), and I let her either toss it or freeze it.  Our downstairs freezer is about 75% unmarked ingredients for Indian cuisine.  Sometimes I get annoyed if we're low on space, but ultimately it's okay with me, and, like I said, I benefit from, more than anybody, actually.  When she's in-law is in town, I consume about as much of her food as everybody else combine.

S's dad is usually nice to have around also.  He's good with the kids, and he showed me this interesting math problem.  (I figured it out, and tried to explain to him why it worked, but I think I failed mightily in that regard.)  He does do that old-man thing, however, of listening to the TV (or in this case his iPad) way too loudly.  S's sister said she suggested once that he use earbuds, and he told her he didn't need them because "it's not that loud."  For him, that's probably true.  I suspect when you're closing in on 80, nothing is that loud.

We all watch Jeopardy! together, and I call out the answers*, because I am pretty good at Jeopardy! and obnoxious about it (in my defense, what fun is it if you can't call out the answers).  And S's dad always says, "You should go on this show."  He says it as if it's a volunteer operation and not a super competitive process undertaken by all the best trivia players in the country.

*Yes, I know, technically they're questions.

S's sister, Sw, brought her dog with her, and I realized that I like having a dog around.  If you never have to feed it, clean up after it, or be home to take it outside, having a dog is great!  Sw's dog is relatively small and doesn't shed a whole bunch, which is nice.  Also, she cleans up his poop immediately after he goes, and I greatly appreciate that.  I can't stand having doggy bombs around my yard, even temporarily.  When I was a kid our dogs just shit up the backyard, and then once every six months or so somebody would scoop them all up with a shovel, and it was absolutely disgusting in the meantime.  (The worst is that the fresh logs would grow mold on them.)  To be sure, our backyard was not a pleasant place to hang out, anyway -- it was basically a small overgrown patch of grass and a sticker-bush ditch* -- but the ever-present dog crap certainly didn't help.

*My parents have since landscaped it and built a deck and a bunch of rockery, and now it's quite lovely. 

 --------------------------------------------------------

With S out of town, I'm trying to think of a movie or two to watch with the kids that she wouldn't want to watch with us.  I have a whole list of perfect mom-is-out-of-town movies, but I think they're still a little too young for most of them.  If Lil' S2 was Lil' S1's age, then I would be fine with it, so probably in a few years.  Here's my top three:

3. Conan the Barbarian

2. The Best of the Best

1. Bloodsport

 --------------------------------------------------------

Update: I did not, in fact, show them any of these movies.  Instead we watched a bunch of episodes of this show Bluey and all laughed hysterically.  Bloodsport, Bluey -- we got range in this family.

 --------------------------------------------------------

The kids have started playing baseball and it has been a mixed bag thus far.  They're kinda into it -- they don't throw fits when it's time to go -- but they don't seem to love it.  They never ask to play catch or take swings at home, which I think is a good measure of interest: Do they want to play in their free time?  So far the answer is "no" for both them.

They aren't terrible though.  If they would practice, even just a little bit, they might be among the better kids on the team.

I'm the coach of Lil' S2's team, and it's going pretty well.  At that age it's just about keeping the game moving without anybody wandering off in the meantime.  There is not a whole lot of actual instruction going on.  There are a whole lot of bullshit safety rules you have to follow, however, especially with Covid still a consideration.  I'm all for real safety regulations, but so much of what we have to do is just CYA window-dressing.  For example, all the kids have to wear batting helmets when they bat, even though it's coach-pitch with mushy balls lobbed at approximately five-miles-per-hour.  Nobody is getting seriously injured by a pitch, even if they get hit in the head.  I mean, the kids throw harder than the coaches pitch -- and they have worse aim.  It would make more sense for them to wear helmets while playing catch, to be honest.  This is not a big deal, in and of itself, but when you take a bunch of these little rules in aggregate they can be really annoying.

--------------------------------------------------------

One big reason I'm glad the kids are back in school is because I don't think teachers can evaluate students, especially ones Lil' S2's age, properly online.  We have gotten several requests to sign Lil' S2 up for special programs -- reading tutoring, summer school, etc.  It's never stated explicitly why he's being extended such offers, but it seems like it must be because they think he's behind.  This is perplexing to me, as I would say he's about average when it comes to reading and well beyond average when it comes to math.

What I think is going on is that his social diffidence is being mistaken for a lack of educational progress.  Unlike his older brother, he's not the type to speak up or answer questions in class, and I imagine that over Zoom this can come off as not knowing.  Now, I definitely don't want to be one of those parents who blames all their kid's scholastic failings on the teacher or the system or being bored or whatever.  I used to deal with these parents occasionally when I taught college,* and they were annoying and almost always wrong.  It really was the student.

But, I don't think I'm doing that with Lil' S2.  Like I said, he seems to be right about on pace with reading, and he's way ahead of the typical five-year-old in math.  He can legitimately do multiplication.  If you ask him, "What's 7 times 4?" he'll think about it for a few seconds and then he will say "easy, 28."  With numbers under 10, he gets it right almost every time.   He do more complicated calculations too.  The other day I said to him, "If we're playing cards and there are 52 in a deck, and we have three decks, plus four jokers, how many total cards are there?"

"158," he replied.  I told him he was wrong.

"Ohhh, 160," he then said.  "I forgot to add one of the twos."

I don't think that's typical kindergarten processing.  Of course, when he has to write down his answers they look like symbol salad -- backward, misshapen numbers, floating haphazardly on the page -- so maybe that's part of the problem.  He probably could stand some work on his writing.  Actually, we took the school up on their tutoring offering for reading and writing.  He was supposed to work virtually with a tutor for a half-hour every week.  He did it once about a month ago, and then the tutor cancelled at the last minute the next week, and then we haven't heard from him since.  Whatever.

*Yes, I had to sometimes deal with the parents of students in college.  I can't imagine how mortified I would have been if my parents had ever intervened like that on my behalf.

--------------------------------------------------------

I made an appointment to get my tooth extracted, so I guess this is actually happening -- implant #3.  I'm not happy about it.  But, then again, my tooth is bothering me (if it wasn't I wouldn't be getting it pulled), and I want it to stop, so I am happy about it if you condition on the fact that my tooth hurts.  Also, I found out the periodontist will not have to graft bone from my palate to do the implant, and it will be a bit cheaper out-of-pocket than I was anticipating.  But still super expensive compared to the $0 it would cost me if I didn't have to get it extracted.  It's all relative.

--------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I was sitting on the sofa reading to the boys and my shirt pulled up a little bit and Lil' S1 yanked it wide open and said, "Daddy, you're seriously getting fat."  It wasn't his typical taunting.  He said it with a completely somber, concerned tone.

It's true.  I'm legitimately putting on weight, and it's almost entirely localized in my belly.  I can't stop the expansion.  I mean, I can and hopefully will, but I can't do so easily.  I've reached an inflection point in my life whereby I can no longer exercise enough to overcome all the garbage (delicious, delicious garbage) I shove down my gullet.  My metabolism has slowed down, and my workouts have gotten a little lighter and a little less frequent, but my eating has stayed the exact same.  The result is an ever expanding tummy.  It was especially bad while S's family was here, we had two birthday celebrations, but there's always something.

I'm vowing to eat better, starting... now.  I don't have to make radical changes, just cut the crap.  That's it.  I can eat all the same things I eat now, except for the three massive pieces of cake, the two cupcakes, the pint of ice cream, and the family-size bag of potato chips I ate over the last two weeks.  I just have to not eat that.  The concept is simple, but the execution is hard.

--------------------------------------------------------

I watched this excellent Netflix show Pretend It's a City.  It's a seven-episodes docu-series of Martin Scorsese interviewing Fran Lebowitz.  I highly recommend it.  Actually, I don't recommend it at all.  I very much enjoyed it, but I don't recommend it.  It's the type of thing, I suspect, a lot of people would find pointlessly boring, but I loved it.  One of my favorite things is listening to smart people just riff on random subjects, and Fran Lebowitz is a master of this genre.  She's so quick, so funny, so thought-provoking.

The thing I like about her is that she can be asked about something totally mundane, "Do you have any guilty pleasures?" And then give a five-minute monologue as if she has been waiting for somebody to ask her this question her entire life.  The only person I've ever heard who can rival her impromptu wit in this regard is Adam Carolla.

One thing she said that I like is that she can only truly identify with people of her generation.  If she meets somebody of her generation she can tell exactly what they're about, what image they want to convey, by how they dress, the slang they use, the music they listen to, so on and so forth.  But if she meets somebody who's younger than her, they all seem culturally the same: young.

That's so true for me too.  Obviously it's not objectively true -- all generations have their own nuanced subcultures -- but it seems true to me.  And here's a scary thought.  I now relate more with somebody of Fran Lebowitz's generation than I do with a new adult.  The difference in age is almost exactly the same in either direction, and she's 70.

Until next time...