Taking a Day I am something in between a workaholic and a lazy bastard. I truly do not know which of the extremes is more prevalent. I know I have worked for forty-three years mostly non-stop. I had several instances when I could have and perhaps should have reasonably taken a break from work of something like six months. There was always something that drove me to keep working or, most often, jump into my…
A Little Bit City, A Little Bit Country Donny and Marie Osmond made A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘N Roll their theme song for their variety show in the 1970’s. It was driven by the schizophrenia of Nashville in that era. Mashing up music genres must have been an unnatural act. In today’s multi-pronged social-media-saturated world, I guess everyone has an easier time with mash-ups. As I headed uptown this morning in…
To Be or Not to Be I don’t know whether I want to work anymore. That sounds funny when I read that back. Work is one of those funny words that can mean just about anything. I was not a privileged kid (not that I was “underprivileged” either), so I did my share of manual labor jobs as a kid. Given a childhood interrupted by my mother going to graduate school for four years,…
Home Town Heroes Kim and Lennie put on a show last night. One from Indiana and one from Missouri, giving tribute to their home states and all the song writers that came from, lived in or happened through their home states. They also indulged their mutual love for New York City and its vast array of song material, by singing a few of those tunes as well. I would like to take a moment…
Forever Young When I wake up each morning, I take stock in how I feel. I’m pretty sure everyone does some form of this assessment consciously or subconsciously. This morning it has been conscious. To begin with, I awoke at 5:18 after sleeping since 11pm. My conscious mind said I should go back to sleep for another hour. When I awoke next at 5:34 I knew it that was all she wrote. I have…
Only the Lonely My weekend theme is loneliness for some reason. We all know that older people get lonely as the rest of the world carries on with it’s busy schedule. They seek out ways to stem that tendency, but it’s not clear to what end. While it always remains that people are all different, I tend to think that as we age we have less tolerance to exchange comfort for adventure or companionship. Some…
Working My Way Back to Me I keep seeing this TV ad for Land Rover that highlights the Dragon Challenge in Hunan Province, China. Land Rover must be in advertising saturation mode since the ad is on all the time. It seems to be an amazing 99-switchback mountain road combined with a 999-step staircase going 45 degrees up the side of a mountain. In the commercial, the Range Rover Sport climbs straight up the…
Dying Too Soon Today my youngest son and I went to go see a movie that had a lousy Rotten Tomatoes score of 43. I was skeptical of the score since the fan rating was 79 and it starred Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and Michelle Williams. The movie was After the Wedding. It’s the story of a successful entrepreneurial woman (Moore) and her sculptor husband (Crudup) who wants to make a large charitable gift to…
When it’s Time This morning I have a mild headache brought on, most likely, by a stiff neck. Maybe it was from sleeping too long (I had a catch-up eight hours last night) or maybe it’s from driving a total of six hours yesterday with one full hour being in a blinding downpour. Then again, I played golf on Saturday for the first time in two years, and while the lower back stiffness has…
Teaching to Learn I am way too impressionable. Not like Trump, who adopts whatever posture he has been advised to consider by the latest person to talk to him. But when I hear or read something that strikes me as valid, I take it to heart and most importantly, I try and act on it. Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about how to keep track of things we need to do. She likes…