...All my darkest hours talking like this...

It’s not my birthday

“How can I be privileged if sometimes I feel sad?”

I saw a feminist cartoon satirizing the conceit of cis white male privilege that said this. Even though I consider myself to be multi-racial, I understand how I read to most. Because of the color of my skin and the understated nature of my epicanthic folds, mentioning the tribulations in life is prohibited, or are disfavored in this time and place. Society commands me:

“Shut up and count your blessings”

that’s generally good advice anyhow.

They are many. My children are healthy and doing well. My fiancee is smart, powerful, beautiful, and loves me. I have my health.

So I won’t complain. Nevertheless, at some point in our lives, getting older is no longer a celebration, it’s a source of bemusement… Until you are so old that it’s a celebration again. Isn’t this sentiment universal? Can’t we all agree that wary melancholy is okay?

No? Shut up? Okay… Lyrics:

Well the rain falls down without my help I’m afraid
And my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consent
When this grey world crumbles like a cake
I’ll be hanging from the hope
That I’ll never see that recipe again

As I walk, I think about a new way to walk
As I think, I’m using up the time left to think
And this train keep rolling off the track
Trying to act like something else
Trying to go where it’s been uninvited

It’s not my birthday
It’s not today
It’s not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me?
When the word comes down, “Never more will be around”
Though I’ll wish you were there, I was less than we could bear
And I’m not the only dust my mother raised

So, I’m rattling the bars around this drink tank
Discreetly I should pour through the keyhole or evaporate completely
But there’d be no percentage, and there’d be no proof
And the sound upon the roof is only water

And the rain falls down without my help I’m afraid
And my lawn gets wet though I’ve withheld my consent
When this grey world crumbles like a cake
I’ll be hanging from the hope
That I’ll never see that recipe again

How does “Frank Leaves For The Orient” end?

I have wanted to know for years. Here it is the last ten minutes of episode 6.

Frank, having rid himself of all his stuff, realizes that he has unburdened himself of past regrets and grudges and is happy. Then he feels himself to be a blank slate and imagines that he can reinvent himself more beautiful and amazing than any past Frank. But as he looks in the mirror he sees himself clearly for the first time in his life. He isn’t his memories or his dreams. He is just himself.

Fate can be funny. Why was I unable to find this episode for so many years? I guess I wasn’t ready to see it. That and someone wanted residuals

Kids on bikes

Cyclists in my city often annoy me. An unpopular opinion (I know), but this morning I watched a cavalry of four kids heading either to the local middle school or high school. They were glorious, in a natural formation, standing on the pedals, arms & back arched, school backpack on so that their open windbreaker flap in the breeze. No silly shoes, no panniers, no wobbly handlebars, rules of the road obeyed like riding is a thrill; Bill Denbrough beats the Devil ….

Adult bikers, you are doing it wrong.

I was standing at the bus stop alone because my High School daughter dashed up the hill and across the street to beat the crosswalk light and catch the bus. She waved to me before boarding, English Muffins in the other hand.

In a previous year, I would have ran with her and before that, I wold have ran past her and made her look both ways before crossing. I still have an instinct to do that, but its clear and everyday clearer still that I must arrest that instinct.