Entry 702: Miscellanea

Alright, the wife and kids are away for about an hour, so I'm just going to fire through as many topics as I can in that time.

More on Age

My last post was largely about age and aging. Age, of course, has been a hot topic in the news because our current president is quite old (81) and is seeking reelection, so he would be really old when he leaves office (86) if he served another full term. His age isn't the issue per se, but rather his changes in behavior, as caused by the effects of aging, are proving to be a potential weakness in his candidacy. Even the most ardent Biden supporters, if they are being honest with themselves, have to admit that he has slowed down considerably in his speech and demeanor. He presents publicly as much frailer than he did even two years ago. His verbal gaffes, which he has always made, now come off as senior moments rather than personality quirks.

According to those close to him, he's still on top of things mentally, and his policies and positions are the same as always, which is good, but a huge part of being (and running for) president is communication, and that's where Biden's outward feebleness really hurts him. It understandably makes people uneasy. I'm not an ageist, by any means. If anything, I think our culture is too youth obsessed (and I thought that even when I was a youth myself). If an old person can still do the job, then their age truly doesn't matter -- and some old people can do the job right up to the moment they die. I remember listening to an interview with Carl Reiner when he was 95, and he was completely lucid and cogent, telling stories from his past, making salient political points, and promoting his new memoir. If Biden presented that way, I don't think his age would be a huge political liability.

Personally, I'm not concerned with Biden's ability to do the job -- except for what I consider his main job: beating Donald Trump in November. It's getting a bit scary how close this race is (most polls actually show Trump with a slight lead, but I'd put it at 50-50 at this point). Biden just doesn't seem to be able to, and his advisers don't seem willing to allow him to, effectively make the case against Trump as he did in 2020. One thing that really helped him back then, I think, is that his opponents way overplayed the doddering old man, "Sleepy Joe" persona, so it was very easy for him to outperform expectations in the debates and other public appearances. I don't think that same phenomenon will be in play this time around.

There have been many, many calls for Biden to drop out -- Bill Maher has taken to calling him "Ruth Bader Biden" -- but unless he becomes seriously ill over the next few months, I don't see that happening. He's almost certainly going to be the nominee. I am slightly in favor of him dropping out and being replaced by Generic Democrat X, but it is a risk. Because we are already past the point of having a normal primary, Generic Democrat X would have to be somebody not selected by the voters, and so there is a very real chance that whoever gets selected would be even less popular than old Biden. I wish he had stepped down a few months ago, but he didn't, and he's not going to, so for those of us who don't want to see a repeat of 2016, our best course of action is to support him and vote for him and hope distaste for his opponent carries the day as it has in the past.

Love is Blind

From the depressingly serious to the frivolously fun.

Love is Blind is S and my trash TV show of choice. Last season was so bad and boring, we almost didn't watch this season, but we decided to give it another try, primarily because it's one of the few shows we actually watch together,* and what else are we going to do during our rare moments alone -- talk to each other? It turned out to be a good decision, as the latest season has been quite entertaining thus far. I definitely would not watch the show on my own, but with S, it's fun.** 

*Part of this is because we have different taste. She's not going to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, for example (new season has been excellent thus far). But a bigger part of it is because I just can't keep up with her on the TV watching front. When I'm doing household chores, I listen to podcasts, but she watches TV on the iPad. She also watches a lot of stuff on her work trips. There have been many times when I hear of a show and suggest we watch it together, and then she tells me that she's already seen the first three seasons, but that if I can catch up in the next week, we can watch season four together.

**Another thing I like about it is that Mina Kimes does a recap show about it on YouTube (Love is Kimes), and in general, I really like Mina Kimes, so it's a good way to consume more of her content. And if you don't know who Mina Kimes is, she's an NFL analyst (Seahawks fan!) at ESPN, who also dabbles in pop culture commentary. I think her podcast is probably my second favorite football podcast at the moment. My top choice in Minus Three, but only when Kevin Hench is on -- love listening to that guy.

Keys

Lil' S1 has taken up keyboarding. He does this thing called School of Rock that a few of his friends do. He just started, so we will see how it goes. I could totally see him getting bored and abandoning it in a few weeks, but that's okay. I just want my kids to have the courage to come out of their comfort zones and try things. If they don't like it and quit, so be it. We bought a keyboard so that he can practice at home, and so far it's hard to say how it's going. He does play a bit (Weezer's "Island in the Sun"), but he seems to peter out pretty quickly. Also, when he's bored, and I suggest he go practice, he often makes excuses ("I don't have the app on my phone."), which doesn't bode well. But, like I said, we shall see.

Lil' S2 is apparently going to start playing keyboard as well, but I will be surprised if he actually follows through with it and absolutely shocked if it sticks. He's only doing it because we're making him chose another activity in addition to flag football, which is all he wants to do. He's obsessed with football, which I don't mind (I am too), but I want him to try other things, as well. He doesn't even want to play other sports. I tried to get him into baseball (he has a very good arm) or basketball or soccer, but he refuses to play them and gets weirdly bent out of shape when I bring them up. Then I tried a bunch of individual sports -- tennis, swimming, jujitsu, etc. -- but he doesn't want to do those either. The thing is, I suspect that if he actually gave some of these things a chance, he'd really like them, so I'm tempted just to sign him up for one, but then I'm the parent who's forcing his kid to play a sport, and I have little desire to be that guy, so I'm kinda stuck.

S and I discussed it, and we told him he has to chose one other activity that isn't football. It doesn't have to be a sport. He picked Mathnasium, which is this thing his brother did for many years, but then he threw a fit when he found out we could only sign him up in monthly increments. ("I just want to try it for two weeks!") We told him that he only had to go once a week, so a month was actually only four sessions, but it didn't assuage him one bit. So, then he said that he would do keyboards as his other activity, and that's where we left it. Who knows, by the time you read this he could have given up on that idea entirely and told us he wants to try kabaddi instead. Actually, I'd be down if he wanted to try kabaddi. It looks cool, and it would help him keep in touch with his Indian roots. We would probably have trouble finding a kabaddi league in this area, though.

Taxes

We -- well, mainly I -- did our taxes this week. We haven't filed yet because we are still waiting on a form, but they're pretty much done. I get so resentful every time I do taxes. It's not because of the amount we have to pay -- I really don't care that much about that. It's because of how byzantine and maddening the process is. I would gladly pay a few percent more each year, if it were possible to understand exactly how everything works without needing a CPA degree. The fact that we have to pay to know how much we have to pay is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, just basic TurboTax is like $100.

The other thing that drives me crazy is that I'm constantly suspicious that if I were savvier, we would be paying way less, and that makes me feel like a chump. It's not about the money; it's about my ego. The amount we owe is a bit more than what we were guessing, and I think that's because we simply don't qualify for some of the deductions we used to (humblebrag!), but I'm not sure. We've been thinking about just going to H&R Block and paying somebody to do everything for us. It's possible we would come out ahead because the accountant's fee would be less than the amount of savings they could find for us. But it's also possible we would just end up paying somebody a few hundred dollars, and wasting even more time and energy on this dreadful task, to do what we already did in TurboTax. It's tough to say, which is why it's so infuriating.

I don't agree with much of what Paul Ryan (remember him?) had to say about taxes (or anything else), but one thing I did like was when he said that the tax code should be simplified to the point that a tax return is no bigger than an index card. I'll take it a step farther: How about people who aren't self-employed don't even have a return? There are no deductions, nothing to itemize or declare, just x% comes out of your check each pay period, and we all get on with it. Why couldn't that work?

Until next time...