Entry 558: 'Cause I'm The Tax Man, Y-e-ah, I'm The Tax Man

Very little time to blog this weekend.  I allocated some time to blog this afternoon, but I spent it filing our taxes instead.  It was long and frustrating, but I got it done.  We owe a little less than we were thinking too, which is a could-be-good-or-bad thing.  On the one hand, paying less money is good; on the other, it makes me wonder if I messed up somehow.  Oh well.  Whatever.  I entered everything as honestly and accurately as possible.  Nothing I can do other than that.

It's all such a racket.  I'm obviously not the first person to complain about our Byzantine tax code, but it's like -- to what end?  To what end is all this 1099-INT, Box B, Line 3 stuff?  Do we need it as a society?  I understand there are benefits to giving people tax breaks on certain things.  It's an easy way to incentivize things we like.  But if we just trashed it all and said, it's x% across the board, or something close to it, would we be any worse off?  Remember Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan?  If we did something like that, only with a higher value, wouldn't that be better?  I think it would.  It would be easier and less expensive to calculate, much less stressful on everybody, and harder to cheat -- no loopholes, no deductions, just x.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd change the percentage based on how much you make.  So, I'd keep the tax brackets but still make it an easy percentage.  Something like, your first $25,000 is not taxed, $25K-$50K is taxed at 15%, $50K-$75 at 20%, so on and so forth, until you get into the multimillions and then everything is taxed at like 75%.  (I'm a soak the rich proponent.)  Something Paul Ryan (remember him?) used to advocate for were tax laws that allow your to file your taxes on a 3 x 5 note card.  I'm totally down with that.  But I suspect we would have different opinions about the magnitude of the numbers that would be on the card.

Anyway, Tax Day got extended this year to May 17, so we still have a month to go, but S got really antsy about it.  Usually she does the taxes, but this year it was a calamity of errors.  She bought TurboTax on her personal computer because her work computer (her preferred computer) has all this firewall protection software on it.  But her personal computer has an outdated operating system and can't run this year's version of TurboTax.  So then she bought the new OS... and realized she doesn't have enough space on her computer to install it.  [Sad trombone sound.]

And that's how I got tasked with it.  I haven't seen S that annoyed with anything in a long time, and so I figured for the sake of matrimonial harmony I should take care of it sooner rather later.  That's how today ended up as tax day, and that's why I have to go now.

Until next time...

Entry 557: Vaccine Appointment Booked!

Finally booked my vaccine appointment.  I say "finally" because I had grown really impatient over the past few weeks, as just about everybody I know has gotten their first shot, at least, or has an appointment to do so.  My number just wasn't coming up.  I am definitely in a low-priority tier -- not elderly, no underlying health conditions, not in a priority zip code, can work from home, etc. -- but others in this tier (like S) are getting their registration emails.  Why not me?

Luck of the draw, most likely, and also I'm not willing to lie on my registration form.  I don't begrudge anybody for "cutting the line" by being savvy online, or knowing somebody who has an in, or just showing up at a vaccine site on stand-by, or what have you -- moving quickly is much more important than moving perfectly fairly in this situation -- but I don't think it's right to say things that aren't true to get priority.  And I know people who have done that.  One person I know, who lives in a condo by himself, answered "yes" to the question, "Do you live in group house?"  Another person I know, of normal weight, said she is obese.  I just can't bring myself to do that.  We need a baseline of courtesy and honesty for society to function.  (Also, there is the small chance of getting caught and called for it, which, to me, is just about the most embarrassing thing imaginable.)

Luckily, S heard about these mass-vaccination centers they've opened in Maryland, even to DC residents, and I was able to book an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.  Initially I was going to drive to Salisbury, which is five hours round-trip from my house, but I was able to find a closer facility, under three hours.  That's not too bad -- about an hour-twenty up and an hour-twenty back.  Plus, it's the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, so it's one-and-done.

It also might be less effective.  It certainly has a worse reputation, which is perhaps why it's available at these mass vax sites, but from what I can gather, its bum rap is mostly unwarranted.  It prevents infection for a significant majority of its recipients (almost 75% in the U.S.), and, most importantly, the number of people who've needed to be hospitalized or died from Covid after taking it is effectively 0.  Here's a quote from AMA Chief Health and Science Officer Mira Irons, MD:

"Don’t get caught up necessarily on the numbers game, because it’s a safe and effective vaccine and what we need is to have as many effective vaccines as possible.  Accept the fact that now you have three highly effective vaccines...  These vaccines have not been tested head to head, so it’s impossible to do a really accurate comparison.  What matters most is … they are all effective at preventing the most severe Covid outcomes, including hospitalization and death."

So, despite the alarmist headlines about J&J, count me in.

One of my trivia friend's wife is also going to get vaccinated at this site tomorrow, and they don't have a car, so I'm giving her a ride.  I don't know her super well, so it might be a little awkward.  Also, I'm not sure if we will wear our masks the whole way there or not.  I didn't even think about that when I offered the ride.  It would be pretty ironic if one of us gave the other Covid on the way to get vaccinated.  We should probably keep our masks on.  (I don't really mind the mask that much, truth be told.)  Also, driving is usually a chance for me to listen to podcasts, and it would be weird if I did that with her in the car.  And now I have to clean the car, which I should have done a long time ago regardless, so I guess that's okay.  It'll be fine.  I need to rebuild my friend group here in DC, anyway.  It's been decimated through people moving out of the city and atrophy from quarantine, so I should probably take every chance I get to bond with people.

In other news, S's whole family -- parents, sister, sister's dog -- are in town for an extended visit.  They all got vaccinated and headed up.  (They are also all still very Covid cautious despite this.)  It's nice -- we hadn't seen her parents in over a year -- but it's a mad house now, especially with everybody being inside most of the time.  Maybe it's a good thing the vaccination site is kinda far away.

Alright, that's all I got for today.  Until next time...

Entry 556: Big Maple

When it comes to home ownership, it’s always something, especially with this house.  I’ve been thinking about why we’ve had to do so much more basic maintenance in our first few years of this house compared to our last house, and I think I know the answer.  We purchased this house from developers who renovated and flipped it.  The incentive for them is to do the renovations as cheaply as possible without hurting the asking price.  This means outwardly things are probably going to look quite nice – beautiful floors, quality tiling, well-kept yard, new paint jobs, etc.  But there are probably going to be corners cut in other, less obvious areas that reveal themselves over time – cheap light fixtures and ceiling fans, slow drains, closet doors that are put on backwards, etc.  A potential buyer will probably catch some of these during inspection (we caught a few), but not all of them, and the DC housing market is so tilted toward sellers that a lot of buyers waive their inspections or don’t much stock in them, because they are so scared of scuttling the deal.  It’s better for the seller to go cheap wherever they can get away with it, because they won’t be living the house they're selling.

Our previous house, on the other hand, we purchased from a woman who had lived there for almost 20 years before she sold it to us.  So, it was the reverse.  Outwardly it didn’t look as nice, but all the little practical quality-of-life things were better, because she had been consistently upgrading and fixing them.  Her incentive was to make the house as livable as possible, since she was the one living in it.  It wasn’t to her benefit to go cheap.

Although, now that I think about it, we did spend thousands of dollars in renovations and fixes while we lived there.  We spent almost $10K alone on a new radiator because our old one was leaking carbon monoxide (which is very bad), and we completely remodeled one of the bathrooms, the basement, and extended a bedroom.  We also leveled out our backyard and replaced a rotting deck with a nice stone patio.  I don’t remember exactly how much all that cost, but it must have been pretty expensive.  So, maybe our old house wasn’t any cheaper to maintain.  Maybe it was just less annoying because it wasn’t the constant drip, drip, drip of repairs – or maybe it was, and I’m just falling victim to recency bias, and you can basically ignore everything I’ve written thus far.

 

Whatever the case, this time it’s a tree.  We have a big tree in our back yard – a maple of some sort, I think – and it’s kind of a nuisance.  It blocks a lot of light and it litters our yard with sticks, especially after a strong wind.  But it’s a tree, and I’m loathe to mess with trees, because they are important to the ecosystem and a big part of the neighborhood aesthetic.  S, however, wants to do something about it.  Her main fear is that the bigger branches are going to snap off during a storm and damage our house... or worse.  

So, she’s called a few tree people out to look at it and see what could be done.  In DC, apparently you can only cut down a tree if you have a good reason, and the first guy who came out told us that we wouldn’t be able to attain the permit to do so.  He suggested we do some extensive pruning.

But then we had somebody else come out, and she took a long look at the tree, picked up a long stick stuck it through a knothole, smelled it (for some reason), and shook her head.

Her: You see that.
Me: Uh... I don't know?  No?
Her: You don't see that?
Me: It's a stick?
Her: Look at how deep it goes.
Me: What does that mean?  Is that bad?
Her: It means you have hollow growth.
Me: You're going to have to elaborate.
Her: This entire limb is at risk of snapping off.

The "limb" to which she was referring is basically a whole separate tree in and of itself.  If it snapped off it would complete cave in the roof of our family room.  This was in direct contrast to what the other guy told us, who said the tree was perfectly healthy and structurally sound.  I don't know whom to believe.  It looks healthy to me, but what do I know?  I'm no arborist.  Also, the second person's assessment got me a bit spooked, as we do have some powerful wind storms come through here from time to time.

As I mentioned above, S has long been fearful that this tree would cause damage, so she's all in on getting it cut down.  I ultimately agreed.  My thinking is this: Since we're required to get a permit from the city, anyway, there is no harm in starting that process.  If they tell us that it is healthy and strong and can't be cut down then that's that.  But if they tell us it does pose a risk and that we are allowed to cut it down, then we should do that.  Really, it's an easy decision for us, because it's not our decision.

Also, if we cut it down, it will make it easier for us to get solar panels, which has been a dream of mine for a while, so it would probably be a net positive for the environment overall.

Alright, time to what some college basketball.  I could win hundreds of dollars if Houston pulls off an upset of Baylor.  Let's check the score -- shit, it's already 19-11 Baylor.  Oh well, is all a mess of corruption, anyway.

Until next time...

Entry 555: Still Covid-Free

I mentioned in my last post that Lil’ S2 was sick, but I thought it was not Covid.  Well, I can confirm, indeed, that it was not Covid.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that it was something, and it was something he passed on to the rest of us.  I woke up Sunday morning feeling like a horse had kicked me in the nose and then stomped on my eye sockets for good measure.  It was an unbearable sinus headache.  It got a little better throughout the day (a couple pops of ibuprofen went a long way), but that morning, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do much else but lie in bed all day.

Everybody was feeling more or less the same, so Monday morning we took a fun little outing to Anacostia for family Covid-testing day.  Our house to the Anacostia testing site is just about the farthest any two points can be in DC and still be within the district lines.  It takes over a half-hour to drive there, but it’s a good testing center for kids because you don’t have to get out of the car.  So, we went there and got tested.  It was super easy – the place had more volunteers than patients.  We didn’t wait at all, a stark contrast from when I got tested before Christmas and had to wait in a line dozens deep.  I think it was the season – a lot of people wanted to be cleared before traveling for the holidays – or maybe since a lot of people are vaccinated now there just isn’t the testing demand anymore (and surely some non-vaccinated people have just given up on the whole thing altogether).  Whatever the case, it was easy and we got our results back in two days: negative all around.

I’m glad it wasn’t Covid, but from what I hear from the people my age who’ve had Covid, my symptoms were worse than what they had.  It was brutal -- and it's not totally finished.  I’ve been hacking and wheezing for nearly a week.  I took two days off work and haven’t done a workout since last Friday (I just got into a really good rhythm too – it’s always something).  Doing some amateur contact tracing, I’ve deduced that it was a woman who first got it, passing it to her child, who passed it to a different child, who passed it to Lil’ S2, who passed it to us (and our poor babysitter, who said she was bedridden for four days).  I’m slightly annoyed, because the parents of the child who (probably) passed it to Lil’ S2 knew their kid was sick and sent him over to pod at our house anyway.  His mom texted that he was feeling much better, but when he came over here, he still sounded pretty sick to me.  But I can’t be too mad – nobody is trying to get anybody sick and every parent has to make judgements about that type of thing.  It’s not like S and I always do the right thing.  Also, it’s not 100% clear who got whom sick.  You have to chalk this one up to: Shit happens.

Speaking of Covid, S is scheduled to get her first vaccine dose next week.  I don’t know why she got picked and I didn’t.  I think she just had a better lottery number.  It’s still good news.  We have to be near the end or this whole ordeal.  At this point, I want to avoid Covid mainly because it would be too disheartening to get it now.  It’s like, I don’t want all the work and sacrifice I – we as a society – put into this to go for naught.  If I get Covid I will feel like I've let us all down.  It’s personal.

In other news, kids sports are getting going again.  We’ve signed up both our boys for baseball, which should be interesting.  Lil’ S1 played previously, and didn’t show much enthusiasm, so I’m surprised he wants to play again, but he insists that he does.  We signed him up for the wrong league, though.  He’s in the AA division, which is more competitive and goes up to 10-years-old, instead of the A league which stops at 8 (his age).  We are trying to switch him, as he doesn’t really have the skills to hang with kids his own age, let alone older than him.  And baseball is one of those sports in which it’s tough to fake it.  Soccer -- you can just kinda run around and blend in.  In baseball if you don’t have basic skills, it’s difficult to even participate.  You need to be able to catch, throw, and make some contact with the bat, at the very least, and I’m not sure he can do that.  I’d be more than willing to help him with those things, but he’s just not interested.  Last time we played catch was over a year ago and he got bored five minutes into it.

He also shows zero interest in following sports as a fan.  I’ve been watching March Madness games lately, and whenever he joins me, he gives the teams Pokémon names based on the color of their uniforms.  (It’s the Scorbunnies* versus the Pikachus!)  It’s fine by me.  I wish he liked sports because I like sports and so it would be an easy thing to do together, but there are plenty of other things.  Sometimes I think my own childhood was too sports-centric.  Now, I wish I had been in more plays** or been a mathlete or done quiz bowl or become a hacker or something like that.  But sports was how I wanted to spend my free time, so that’s what I did.  Lil’ S1 just isn’t like that.  In fact, I didn’t even really want to sign him up for baseball.  It was S who pushed the issue, even though she never hesitates to tell me how much she hates sports.  It’s a conflict for her – her dislike of sports versus her belief that our kids will fall behind in life unless they do everything every other kid does.  This time the latter won out.  

*Although, the Score Bunnies would be a pretty cool name for a basketball team.

**Perhaps my biggest regret in life is turning down an opportunity to be in the high school play my senior year.  I knew the drama teacher from class, and she asked me to try out for one of the main roles after she had already made first cuts.  I didn't do it because it overlapped with the first few weeks of the wrestling season -- a stupid reason, made even stupider by the fact I hurt my knee and missed those weeks anyway.  When I saw the play I fixated on the kid who played "my" role thinking: I would have been so much better. 

With Lil’ S2 it’s still too early to tell.   He might actually take to baseball.  I’m not sure.  We will see.  He has shown some interest in sports, but only combat sports.  He loves watching boxing and MMA videos.  This puts me in a tough position, as I want to nurture this interest, but I don’t want him to become some sort of violence-obsessed little kid.  I’m trying to emphasize the idea of self-defense and sport fighting, and how that’s different from bullying and "real" fighting.  I think he gets it.  I would like to get him in to some youth classes at my Krav Maga gym, though, because the kid is a natural.  He can throw a legit punch and he’s aggressive.  Wrestling too.  Gotta get this kid on the mat.

Okay, gotta go switch out some laundry.  I'm doing a load of towels, because I had to do a massive -- and massively disgusting -- clean-up job yesterday.  Some pipes got clogged in our basement, and it caused a bunch of shit water to gurgle up through a drain for our hot water heater.  Thankfully, it didn't get on the carpet, but it was still a mess, and it stunk to high heaven.  It also cost us $1,000 to get the pipe unclogged, and we have to pay more for a special diagnostic procedure to make sure it worked.  It was roots, which is a common problem, and one that can be really damaging if you can take care of it.

Ah, the joys of home ownership.

 Until next time...   

Entry 554: You Don't Know What You Want Until You Get It

Lil' S2 is a bit sick right now.  It has all the makings of the common cold -- coughing, congestion, lots of phlegm.  Of course, given the state of public health the past year, one's mind immediately goes to coronavirus anytime anybody around them sniffles, but I don't think that's it.  And if it is, what are we going to do about it, anyway?  Everybody in this house has all already been totally exposed, and we can't exactly quarantine a four-year-old.  We are keeping him home (no pod, no park, etc.); we are keeping an eye on him; and we are monitoring ourselves and his brother for symptoms (so far so good on that front).  I thought about getting him tested for Covid, but, really, what's the point?  We won't know for, like, a week, and by that time he will probably be better either way.  A test would in no way change our behavior regardless of the result.

This underscores the problem with testing right now.  As people start congregating more and things start opening back up (except schools), testing in which you have to wait longer than a few minutes to get your results is totally inadequate.  Nobody is getting tested, quarantining for days until they get their results, and then going out.  We are no longer at that stage, and we aren't going back, even if perhaps we should.  I was listening to a podcast the other day, and a public health expert was saying that we probably put too many resources into a vaccine and not enough into rapid testing.  I was on that in the fall when it became clear the virus had survived the summer, and we were in for a tough winter.  Here's what I wrote:

If I were in charge (if only...), I would probably start shifting resources toward disposable at-home testing.  If we got a semi-reliable, affordable Covid test, similar to a pregnancy test, where you could swab yourself and get a result back in ten minutes -- and my understanding is that this is well within the realm of possibility -- that would be huge.  With such a test and the continuation of distancing and mask-wearing, I think we could get that infamous R-value under 1, meaning the disease would peter out.  A vaccine or other treatment would accelerate the decline, and of course we should continue development along these lines, but I think it's foolhardy to pin all our hopes on this.

Mostly right, I would say.  Vaccine development and distribution has gone a little better than I thought it would.  (Keep in mind, when I wrote this there was a chance Trump would win reelection.)  But I think I hit the nail on the head with rapid testing.  Imagine if we had such a thing right now.  We could drastically reduce the spread (particularly of the mutated strands, which, to me, is the most concerning aspect of the disease right now) and then the vaccines would be the nail in the coffin.  And society could be almost completely open -- safely -- right now.  If you want to go out for the night, just take a test.  If you pass it, go; if you don't, stay home until you get better.  Easy-peasy.

Anyway...

In other news, my neck is a bit stiff right now.  I slept in our guest room last night and I hate the bed we have there.  Usually, Lil' S2 falls asleep in our bed with S (they have the same bed time, I say with a smirk, but it's not a joke -- they literally both go to sleep at 8:45), and then I move him to his bed when I'm ready to go to sleep.  Since he was sick last night, however, I just let him stay.  Our guest room bed is too soft and doesn't give me adequate head and neck support.  I love the bed in our bedroom and it's spoiled me.  Also, I'm gradually growing into the role of crabby old man, so that's part of it as well.

When S first bought our bed I didn't like it, because I thought the mattress was too firm, and I didn't think we needed a king-size bed.  Now that we've had it for a few years, I have no idea what younger me was thinking.  Here is a list of some things like that.

• King-size bed: As a younger man, I could sleep on almost any padded surface of any size and be comfortable.  I've had prolonged stretches of my adult life in which I've slept on: a twin bed, a futon, a futon mattress, a camping pad, a sofa, and an air mattress.  I was never uncomfortable or wishing I had something different.  Now, if I don't have a king-size bed with the exact right number on the Mohs scale, it's a letdown.
  
  
• Soda stream: S brought home a soda stream shortly after we bought our first house, nine years ago, and I promptly proclaimed, "Well, here's something that will be sitting in storage in a few weeks."  We have used it, on average, more than once a day since then.  My usage has slowed down a bit since the beginning of quarantine, but that's only because I've started drinking more Lacroix.  There's just something satisfying about have a can of something and I've cut soda out of my diet completely (and beer almost, honestly).
  
  
• Wireless earbuds: S bought me a pair (are you sensing a theme?) a few years ago, and now when I have to use corded ones it feels so awkward.
  
  
• Gas fireplace: I discussed this in a recent entry, but there is really nothing better than reading in front of a fire on a dreary winter evening.
  
  
• Gas grill: Similarly, during the summertime, it's tough to beat grilling up some turkey burgers and chicken sausages.  This is one of the few times I will crack open a cold one.  We got our grill on a whim six or seven years ago while my parents were visiting (I remember, we left my dad home alone for a few hours and he assembled the entire thing himself), and it's been a weekend staple when the weather is nice ever since.  
  

Okay, I told the kids I would watch a little bit of Mulan with them, and I can tell by the dramatic music it's getting close to the end, so that's all for now.

Until next time...

Entry 553: Beware The Ides of March

I looked at the date before writing this and was kinda surprised to see we are now legitimately in Mid-March.  Time flies when you're having fun -- or not, apparently.  This past year, spent mostly masked or in quarantine, has had its own dark charm, but I definitely wouldn't say it was "fun."  So, apparently time just flies.  It has for me since eighth grade.  That's my cutoff line.  The decade from my earliest memories, age four or so, to my 13th birthday felt longer than the three decades since.  I do that thing so often now, where you vaguely think of something as being "a couple years ago," and then you actually drill down on the details and realize "a couple" is seven.  Wait... that happened in 2014?!

Here are a few time facts that trip me out.

• When my father was my age, I was in high school.
• There is now a large contingent of adults who don't really remember anything from the 20th century.
• Nirvana's music is older today than the Beatles' music was when I was a teenager.
• If they redid The Wonder Years today, it would be set around 2004.
• The Seattle Mariners and I were "born" in the same year, and they didn't make their first playoff appearance until we were legally adults -- in year 19; it's now been 20 years since their last playoff appearance.

Time flies, but what are you gonna do?  Just keep trying to live your best life.  And I still got a good chunk of history left to see (for better or worse).  I'm shooting for 100, at least, and I'm not even halfway there yet.  I have plenty of time to play trivia games on my phone* and write blog entries (almost) nobody reads.

*Speaking of which, I'm in first place in my division in this trivia thing I do called Learned League (the headline is being sensationalistic; it's not that difficult to join).  It's sorted by skill level, and I'm in the D "rundle" (A is the highest), so it's not like I'm anywhere near the best players overall.  It's very difficult.  I have a career average under 50% correct answers.  But the other day I got all six daily questions right, which I've only done a few other times.  One of the questions was "What dentistry specialty focuses on the treatment of the gingiva and other dental supporting structures, as well as placement of dental implants?"  Given my history with PERIODONTICS, this was a no-brainer for me.

Anyway...

My kids' school is still not completely open yet, which is frustrating.  I've heard rumors that the teachers are vaccinated and still won't come back.  But I don't know for sure if that's true or not.  That's another frustrating part -- parents are in the dark about what is actually going on behind closed doors (or, more likely, over closed-to-the-public Zoom meetings).  I want kids back in the non-virtual classroom ASAP, but I'm willing to give them a pass through the end of this school year.  But that is the absolute end of the line.  If schools aren't totally open by fall, I'll... well, I don't know what I'll do, but I certainly won't be inclined to support the teachers union next time they need public support for something.  Cases are dropping; the vaccine supply is ramping up; we've learned a lot about how to behave in a way that minimizes transmission; children are not great vectors for the virus and not susceptible to its most deleterious effects.  And perhaps most importantly: The damage being done to students who are getting a substandard education (or none at all) and the stress put on families financially, emotionally, and mentally by not having in-person school far, far outweigh the risk of opening schools back up as safely as possible.*  It's bordering on lunacy at this point.

*In writing this, I was reminded of this hot mic incident involving the Oakley School Board in California.  All board members were forced to resigned, which I think is appropriate, but the thing is: so what if parents just want their babysitters back?  Childcare is a massive issue, and for the vast majority of Americans with young children, if they don't have it, they literally cannot earn a living.  We've structured society in such a way that "babysitting" (i.e., childcare) is a crucial service schools provide and one for which we all pay taxes.  Not having childcare is a massive reason virtual school doesn't work.  There's no "just" about it.

We've even gone so far as to start exploring private schools for Lil' S2.  I personally am uncomfortable with the very notion of private schools.  I think they are overpriced, elitist, and exclusionary.  But if I have to chose between that or another year of my son sitting upside-down in his chair while his teacher tries to keep 20 kids engaged over Zoom, I'm picking private school.

It's probably not going to happen, though.  Many private schools are outside our budget, and those that aren't are either too far away or look super religious, which neither S nor I are comfortable with.  The top candidate is a nearby French immersion school, but they are full, so the best we could do is the wait list.  The wait list of a back-up plan probably won't actually come to fruition.

It did cause a nice, stupid argument between S and I, though.  I've said before that almost all our fights are meta-fights, in which we aren't actually arguing about a root cause, but rather arguing about arguing.  In this case, S was telling me about the French school and how they are full for this upcoming year, but then she said that they will probably have spots open next year (fall 2022) and that the missed year doesn't even affect kids language-wise because they're so young they can catch up in no time.  This led to the following conversation.

Me: Next year?  How does that help us?

S: I'm just telling you what she said.

Me: Do you want to send him to the school anyway, even if our school is open again?

S: No, this is our back-up plan.

Me: What does next year have to do with our back-up plan for this year?

S: I'm telling you what she said, so that I don't get accused of not telling you everything later.

Me: But when you lead with next year, in detail, it makes it sound like next year is relevant.  It's very confusing.  Do you see what I'm saying?

S: Fine.  Whatever.  I don't even want to have this conversation anymore.  You can call the woman back and get all the information yourself.

Me: C'mon, you have to understand that you often say things that are clear in your head, but don't come out clear to the listener.  That's fine, but then you can't get flustered and shut down when they ask for clarification.  That's how conversations work.  I'm just trying to talk to you, not criticize you.

S: It's exhausting and stressful to have to constantly explain and clarify everything to you.

Me: Well, I'm not a mind reader, so, yeah, sometimes you need to explain things to me.  Sorry.

S: How about for now on, you do all the research and make all the appointments for them?  It's too hard for me to do it all and explain it all to you.

Me: But you always just charge ahead and do it.  You had an interview scheduled with this school before we even discussed it.

S: Well, maybe I won't do that anymore, and you can figure all this out.

Me: Fine.

S: Fine.

And scene!

Until next time...

Entry 552: Blocked and Reported

I found out earlier this week that one of my favorite podcasters, Mike Pesca, host of The Gist has been suspended indefinitely for unspecified reasons surrounding a debate about whether or not it is ever okay for white people to use the n-word, in any context, even when directly quoting somebody else's words.  The weird thing is that it seems as though Pesca, a white man, is being suspended not for actually employing the n-word himself, but for arguing in an internal Slack chat that the mention-vs.-usage debate is not so clear cut (neither is this story -- Slate and Pesca are mum on it, while an internal investigation is under way).  He did, apparently, say the word twice in 2019, both times in a non-pejorative manner, in unaired interviews, but Slate already knew about this, and did not discipline him (also, other Slate employees have used the word this way without punishment), so it's all a bit confusing as to what exactly Pesca did to warrant a suspension.  Is it now a punishable offense to even have a discussion about a word's acceptability?  How can an institution even set standards if this is the case?

Anyway, it's a bummer, as I really like his show.  As I said above, the details are kinda sketchy, but it does seem as if he's being victimized by the type of illiberalism decried in the (in)famous Harper's Letter that caused such an uproar (in certain circles) last summer.  I never commented on that letter, because I never really worked out how I felt about it.  But I've found myself slowly coming around to the side of the signatories, and I think I'm finally all the way there.  Also, I never commented on it, because I struggle with the vocabulary to talk about it.  Every time I try to express my thoughts on the matter I end up resorting to terms like "woke" and "cancel culture," both of which I loath (but still use sometimes).  "Illiberal leftism?"  That's the best I got so far.

Certain publications, like Slate, which I enjoy, seem to be moving toward this illiberal leftism, whereby adherence to an intangible, greater social justice good is given favor over truth, common sense, and the good-faith exchange of ideas.  HuffPo already went this route years ago, and I've found it mostly unreadable since then.  I really hope Slate doesn't follow suit.

Of course, none of this means I agree with the right-wingers who crusade against their version of "cancel culture," which is actually just holding people accountable for the terrible shit they do and say.  The Jim Jordans of the world are worse than the illiberal lefties many, many times over.  The thing is, "cancellation" is neither inherently good nor bad nor is it binary as the name implies (one of the many reasons I hate the term).  Different people deserve to be cancelled to different degrees.  You have to take it on a cancellation-by-cancellation basis.  Harvey Weinstein should be in prison; Donald Trump should never be allowed to hold public office again; Matt Lauer should never be on TV again; Dr. Seuss's racist books should be removed from school libraries and the non-racist ones should stay; Gina Carano should be on the next season of The Mandalorian (or not, I'm ambivalent about that one); Al Franken should be given a shot at redemption; Ice Cube should be ignored; Mickey Calloway should be fired; Michael Jackson should be allowed on our playlists, as long as we feel kinda guilty about it; so on and so forth.

It's a line, or rather a series of lines, and where we set these lines is what matters.  The lines are moving, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and I want to push some of the lines back in the direction they came from.  I can't tell you exactly where the lines should be, but I can tell you where they shouldn't.  Life is nothing but the sorites paradox repeated ad nauseum.

Alright, I might have lost the thread there at the end, I'm not sure.  It's late here, and I'm getting a bit punchy.  That's one of the unfortunate things about getting older.  My brain gets tired so much more quickly now than it once did.  I used to be able to pull all-nighters with the greatest of ease.  Now, if it's after 9:30 pm, I struggle to produce coherent sentences.  Although, come to think of it, I also used to sleep until noon everyday, whereas now I usually wake up at 8:00 am.  That probably has something to do with it too.

Well, that's all for this week.  But before I go I wanted to give a shout out to a new (for me) podcast I found in the wake of the Mike Pesca brouhaha.  It's called Block and Reported, and they did an excellent episode on this and other topics.

Until next time...