Fair is Fair

          I have a theory that you become the age of the kids you teach. Not completely, of course, but in some very clear identifiable way.  So when I was teaching 13-year-olds, for instance, I’d find myself feeling moody and mopey for no particular reason.  And now that I’m spending a lot of time with 8 and 9-year-olds, I often hear myself scream: “It’s not fair.”

            And seriously, it’s not fair!

            I’m talking about the $1.5 million book deal that Greg Smith just signed.

            Who, might you ask, is Greg Smith and why should you care?

            Greg is the investment banker who left Goldman Sachs and wrote a piece for the New York Times about Goldman’s disdain for its clients. As it turns out, Greg and I have a great deal in common. Minus, of course, one $1.5 million book deal.

            Greg spent the past 12 years working for one employer.  I’ve also spent the past 12 years working for one employer.

            He wrote one piece for the Times.  I’ve written more than one piece for the Times (a few years ago, but you can google them if you want), and I’ve written a couple of dozen posts for this blog.

            Greg won a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games.  I used to be pretty good at table tennis, and if the table in our basement wasn’t sagging in the middle (and I didn’t wear progressive lenses), I’m sure I could still score a few points against any teenager on my block.

            Okay, I’m not really in 3^rd grade, so I’m not blind to the differences between Greg and me: Greg not only worked for Goldman Sachs, he is promising  to write a kiss-and-tell memoir about the firm; I, on the other hand, have been working at a Jewish day school for which I have tremendous affection and regard, and for the right price, I'd be happy to write a kiss-and-kiss memoir.  

            So fair is fair.  I’ll take less than $1.5 million. 

            Let the bidding wars begin!

The Chocolate Diet

         Excuse me a second while I unwrap a chocolate kiss.
        I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now. How could you have missed it?  Chocolate – yes  chocolate – has been linked with weight loss.  But not in the usual manner.  No, according to a new study, people who ate chocolate regularly were actually thinner than non-chocolate eaters. Yes, thinner not heavier.

            Don’t you love it??

            Not exercise. Not carrots. Not low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie. The secret to losing weight is eating chocolate.

            Well, why not?  Just because we’ve always believed the converse of that doesn’t mean it can’t be true.  After all, a lot of things we used to believe were good for us have been proven to be dangerous.

            “Nothing like a little sunshine to clear up your complexion,” my mother used to say. And I’m sure she got her information on good authority – if not from a friend of a friend who was a doctor, then direct from my grandmother.  Certainly, it worked like a charm. Darned if those rays didn’t clear my zits right up.

            As for skin cancer – who even knew to worry about it? As it turned out, we had plenty of time to worry later.

            Then there was my skinny cousin, whose mother felt she needed fattening up. My cousin wasn’t actually skeletal, but her mother felt extra pounds were needed as a cushion to fend off disease.  So she routinely whipped up milkshakes thickened with raw egg and served them to my cousin.

            I wouldn’t have minded the milkshake part, but even then, I would never have eaten a raw egg. But not because I was worried about salmonella. I wouldn’t eat cooked eggs either.

            Likewise no one gave a second thought to cholesterol as we downed our chopped liver. In fact, I’m not even sure anyone knew what cholesterol was.

            So it seems perfectly plausible to me that one day, our grandkids will be saying to each other, “Can you believe for so long they didn’t recognize the value of chocolate? Instead, they ate all those carrots and vegetables – that’s why they got so fat! Had they only known.”

            But now we do.  And so I'm going to have another chocolate kiss.

My Olympic Winners

          The 2012 OIympics are going to be held in London this summer, and I saw a recent article about the preparations and excitement already afoot. There wasn’t anything about the athletes themselves, but we know those stories will come. Once the games start, we’ll be all caught up in the excitement.  Amazing, isn’t it, just how much can depend on being one millisecond faster or a teeny bit more dazzling?

            But if you want to know the truth, part of me is going to be thinking – these young athletes have trained their whole lives for this day.  This is what they do. Many people show extraordinary bravery and endurance and strength in other ways.  Why aren’t they standing up on a pedestal, hearing the National Anthem and having a medal is draped around their neck? Where are their awards?

            Right here.

            I’d like to recognize some of the truly extraordinary performances I’ve seen (names withheld to protect the innocent.)

            1. For facing bad (make that the worst) medical news. The competition is tough for this one, but the gold medal goes to a friend who has been battling a fatal illness not only with determination and fortitude, but without losing her ability to remain actively engaged in the lives of her family and friends.  

            2. For parenting a troubled child. Again there are a few contenders, but the winner is a woman who recognized that her son needed help with addiction issues and managed to get him into rehab even though he is over 21.

            3. For coping with the death of a spouse.  One gold medal goes to a friend whose husband of more than 40 years died after a quick, degenerative illness, and she has managed to find the strength to carry on. A second medal goes to a young woman I see raising her children while she copes with her own loss.

            4.  For watching a parent fade away with Alzheimer’s disease. There are far too many friends who could easily win this one hands down. What was I thinking? The competition is so tough that I’m going to have to call in outside judges.  Medals still pending.

            5. For dealing with adversity.  A gold medal goes to a friend who’s legally blind and yet manages to see more than all of us.  She’s a docent at several museums, cooks, entertains and does everything except drive a car.

            6.  For aging gracefully.  The gold medal goes to a relative in her 80s who lives alone, goes to work every day and is sharp and funny and full of life.  Instead of complaining about aches and pains, she tells her doctors she doesn’t have time for appointments.

            This is just a preliminary list, not meant to be all inclusive.  After all, the other Olympics has a whole committee, not to mention a multimillion dollar budget to do things like this.  And I can’t even sing the National Anthem on key to my winners. 

            

Stand Your Ground

          Reading about the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida brings back my own stand-your-ground memories.

            Many years ago, when I was young and willowy, I drove a VW Beetle that was ancient even then.  During a very short time, I had three flat tires, each while I was alone behind the wheel.

            The first flat happened in the middle of the day when I was driving on a highway outside of Baltimore. Suddenly, an old pick-up truck stopped a few yards ahead. Two tough-looking guys jumped down and came running toward me.  I could see their tattoos and a pack of cigarettes tucked under a shirt sleeve, greaser style.  One guy was waving a large tire iron.

            I was terrified.

            But with no cellphone and no weapon, I had no choice but to stand my ground.  Besides where was I going on three tires?  As it turned out, the men only wanted to help. And with that “weapon” of theirs, they got the job done in minutes.

            The second flat came on another stretch of highway while I was on another reporting  assignment. This time a well-dressed man pulled over in a nice clean car, and I felt only gratitude as he fixed my flat. But once the job was done, he walked behind his car and opened the trunk: Oh my god, I thought, he’s got a gun. 

            Instead he took out a roll of paper towels and a bottle of hand cleanser.

            Obviously, I'm lucky that both flats didn't result in any personal trauma. But I also feel lucky that in my fear I didn’t inflict any harm.  For me, standing my ground meant taking a deep breath – not taking aim.  Had a Stand Your Ground law been in effect I could have harmed people whose only crime was wanting to help.

            Travyon Martin’s killer should not be shielded by such a terrible law. Florida’s Stand Your Ground statute creates an environment of vigilantism that makes people think danger lurks at every encounter.  Even when the danger comes from a young black man in a hoodie with a pack of skittles and a can of iced tea in his pocket.  It’s not even clear that Travyon wasn’t the one who felt threatened, younger, smaller and unarmed as he was.

            Oh, about that third flat... It was on a busy city street, and by then I knew just what to do. Still when a male pedestrian stopped, I was ready to hand over the tire wrench. Instead he offered step-by-step instructions and watched as my hands got dirty and my pantyhose ripped.  What a guy.

Rumpled Readers from My Past

Today is my 24^th post, and I have to admit I'm surprised that I've been so prolific. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve written on such a regular basis. Did I say a “long time?” Actually it’s been 30 years since I last worked for a daily newspaper.

 It was 1982 when I left the Baltimore News American to move with my husband to New York. The paper didn’t actually fold until a few years later, but by 1982, there had already been a round of layoffs and the future of the paper looked bleak.

Of course, it hadn’t always been that way. A few years earlier, a new management team had been brought in to revamp the paper, and I was one of the young, eager reporters they hired.  Our newsroom was a newsy, lively place with reporters chattering away on the phone (and to each other), teletype machines clanging with  wire service updates, and even a few typewriters clack-clack-clacking (even with the new computers, some of the older reporters still preferred to type their first drafts.)  A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air, and I bet (though I never knew for sure) some bottles of the hard stuff were stashed in desks around the room.

My husband quickly learned that when I said “everybody loved my article,” that didn’t mean the phones were ringing off the hook. It meant that my co-workers liked the piece. Yes, there were letters of praise, but not many. Complaints were more frequent and always ended with “and another thing – your writing stinks!” What I found harder to brush off were the complaints from people I had interviewed.  Public figures only objected if I got the facts wrong, and I tried hard to be accurate. But ordinary people would get upset about the strangest things. One woman was offended that her plaid couch made its way into an article. Others seemed to think that what they told me was private even though they knew I was a reporter and was taking copious notes. But the most upsetting complaint was when I wrote about a charming old man, a Yiddish poet who had escaped from Poland during World War II only to land up in a Russian gulag. I thought he was wonderful -- his poems were beautiful, and his spirit and determination were inspiring.  I wrote what I thought was a glowing piece, full of admiration and respect.  But it turned out I hurt his feelings. Why did I have to call him “rumpled?”  Because he was.

So even though I’m having a good time writing these posts, I don’t expect to get my old job back.   

To Yoga or Not to Yoga

            Every day as I’m driving home from school, there’s a point on the highway when I have to decide either to go the right (to my house) or the left (to the gym.)  Today, I was heading home.  After all, I’ve got a blog to write and a dog to walk.  But somehow I ended up at yoga anyway.

            What I like most about yoga is that since I started it a few years ago, I’ve actually gotten better. So now at 60 minus 31 days, there are poses I can do that I couldn’t when I was say a mere child of 58. That’s not true of a lot of other activities, especially  not physical ones.  In fact, I can’t think of a single one.

            Yoga instructors are always saying “focus on your own practice,” like we’re all doctors who’ve signed a non-compete clause. But I always end up glancing around the room anyway, looking for people who are really good at yoga and not the least bit young.

            Just think, I tell myself, in a couple more years, you can be as good as they are.

            But I don’t think that’s going to happen today.

             It’s been a long day, and a few minutes into the class, I’m already looking at the clock, counting the minutes to the end. Each move feels like a struggle, and instead of feeling focused and energized, I’m feeling tired. And I’m regretting the turn I took. My poor little dog is probably getting impatient for his afternoon walk, and I still have a blog to write.

            Definitely, the wrong turn.

            Suddenly, it dawns on me that I can leave right now before the class is over. The instructor won’t like it, but he’s not going to stop me. I really can get up and go. But I don’t. It’s funny the rules we make for ourselves, the ones we really don’t have to follow.

            Finally, finally, it’s time to lie down on the mats and relax. The instructor switches to his mellow waterfall music. I let everything wash over me, and I melt into my mat. And then it hits me … I don’t have to write this blog either.  The rules we make.

           

Not Just Heroes

           While idling at a red light the other day, I noticed a new bumper sticker: “Home of the free because of the brave.” There was no room on the bumper sticker to explain just who the “brave” are, but we all know, don’t we? Our soldiers serving in Afghanistan and up until recently, in Iraq.

            Having lived through the Viet Nam War, I’m often struck by just how dramatically our attitude has changed toward our soldiers. Back in the 60s and 70s, soldiers were “baby killers” and worse.  As anti-war activists, we seemed to hold them personally responsible for the war itself.  Perhaps it was because that phrase from the Eichmann trial still echoed in our minds: I was just following orders. In an unjust war that was no defense.

            Of course, for many of us, the young men were not the same boys we went to school with and were all too easy to vilify. They came from other neighborhoods and other parts of the country. It wasn’t until years after the war had ended and I was working as a reporter that I met my first soldiers. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome was just being recognized, and as I interviewed veterans, I was shocked and deeply distressed by the traumas they had suffered first during the war and then back home in civilian life. I was especially moved by the women I met, nurses who had served in combat hospitals only to find themselves unappreciated and adrift at home.

            But even then, when the pain of these young veterans was all too fresh, I don’t remember calling them heroes.  “Hero” just didn’t slip glibly off my tongue.  It was a term used sparingly, reserved for those who were larger than life, who faced adversity with courage and who took the moral high ground.

            Which brings me back to the present.

            In recent days, a U.S. soldier has been implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan. Already his defense team is talking about the stresses of four deployments, traumatic brain injuries, and financial worries back home, and the picture that’s beginning to emerge is not of a monster, but of a man who snapped under pressure.

            Still, I think the massacre drives home the fact that war is not just about heroes.   The Afghanistan war is now in its 11^th year, and we don’t it seem to be winning many hearts and minds. By calling all our soldiers heroes, we don’t have to ask ourselves why we are asking so much of so few.  Yes, like that bumper sticker put it, our brave soldiers are helping to keep us free – free from serious debate on questions like what are we trying to accomplish, are we succeeding and is the sacrifice indeed too high?           

Of Mice, Men and Me

           There was a dead body in my kitchen a few mornings ago. And no, I’m not talking about my pre-caffeinated self or making a hyperbolic statement about anyone’s energy level (or lack thereof) in the morning. No metaphor here. I’m talking about a body in my kitchen that wasn’t breathing.

            Okay, so it was a mouse.

            I know I can be a little hysterical on the subject of mice, but luckily, my husband doesn’t mind them at all. A former research scientist, Jeff used to experiment on mice, and he seems to have an uncanny understanding of their ways.  For instance, the night before the mouse died, Jeff noticed that the peanut butter was gone, but the trap had not gone off.  

            “Ahhh,” he said, “he’s a clever one, our little guy.”

            “Listen honey,” I said, “I really don’t want to hear about his IQ.”

            “Unless he ate the peanut butter here first and then got caught in the other trap,” he mused.

             (Yes, there had been another death earlier this week.  But Jeff removed that body before I saw it so I wasn’t going to mention it.)

            “Just get rid of him, okay?” I demanded. “Please.”

            “Oh, I will,” he said.  “I will.”

            And true to form, Jeff did. He caught the little guy. And now, a few days later, we’ve got no more mice. We’re home free – so to speak.
            It’s funny how marriages evolve. If I’d married someone even more squeamish than me, I’d probably have to step up and be the brave one.

            And trust me I could be brave if I had to. Many years ago, we lived in Baltimore with, as it turned out, a large family of mice. Jeff sprang into action, taking those critters down one by one. But then he had to go out of town on business and for some reason, he didn’t dismantle the traps. One morning, I found a dead mouse in the kitchen. I thought about moving in with friends for the duration, but in the end, I decided to man up. I put on rubber gloves and swept the mouse (and the trap) into a plastic garbage bag.

            Afterwards, I was pretty exhilarated. I guess bravery can do that to you. When my husband called, I proudly told him what happened.

            “Wait a second,” he said. “You threw away a perfectly good trap?”

            

Ready Or Not!

             A friend of mine once wrote a play that took place on an exercise mat.  The premise was that at the end of a workout, when everyone was relaxing on mats, one woman just stayed on her mat. After all, the instructor had said, “Get up when you’re ready,” and she just didn’t feel ready.  So she stayed … and stayed and stayed.

            Ahh…. If only we could wait until we were really ready to move on! 

            I remember being terrified at the thought of graduating college and leaving the security of the academic womb.   And I wonder if I’m the only woman who dashed off to the hospital after her water broke, thinking, “So soon? But I’m not ready yet!”

            As for marriage...Right before my wedding to the man I’m still very happily married to today, I confided to my dad that I wasn't sure I was ready.

            “That’s okay,” he told me.  “You never feel ready for these things.”

            “But you were only 21 when you married mom,” I said.  “I’m 24!”

            “Oh,” he said.  “I was thinking about the second time when I was 49. I didn’t feel ready then either.”

            Well, when I started this blog, some 24 days ago, I certainly didn’t feel prepared to turn 60. Today, I’ve still got some reservations about what lies ahead, which I think is called “old age” and is filled with all sorts of goodies like failing health and death.  But on the whole, I really am feeling much more upbeat. Maybe it’s got something to do with all this blogging I’ve been doing – 19 posts to date, 20 if you count today’s.  With 36 more days to go, I really don’t have time to worry about getting old.  I mean it’s going to happen regardless of whether I’m ready.  Or it won’t happen, which would be a helluva lot worse. Besides I’ve got a lot more immediate concerns, like all these posts I’ve got to write before I reach my goal.  Today’s post is nearly done, but what about tomorrow’s? And the 30 or so ones after that? What am I going to write about?

            Maybe you’ve got an idea …?

That Old Chevy

           On my way to school this morning, an old battered car passed me on the Cross County Parkway.  Did I say old? This car wasn’t old, it was ancient.  I’ve just done some Google research, and I’m going to say it was a Chevrolet from the mid-1950s. It had the fins, the grille and lots of chrome, and it was painted a dull red and white. 

            It’s not every morning you see a car that old in the fast lane, especially not one with a car seat in the back.  Wait a second -- that couldn't have  been a car seat!  They didn't even have seat belts back then in the front, let alone the back seat.  Even though that old Chevy behemoth outweighed my subcompact, it had no air bags or anti-lock brakes or any of the safety features of today’s cars. All of which started me thinking about the things I don’t miss about the 1960s or whenever it was that I was young:

1.  Duck and cover air raid drills

             How old were you when you first realized that hiding under your desk was not going to             help you survive a nuclear attack – even if your teacher told you to do it anyway?

2.  Aerograms

            Forget about long distance phone calls, we couldn’t even write big!

3. Not trusting anyone over 30  

            What were we thinking? Is anyone all that trustworthy under 30?

4.  1960s medicine

            Remember exploratory surgery?  MRIs make me claustrophobic, but I don’t think I’d        prefer being cut open, just to find out what was ailing me.

5.  Rabbit ears on TV

            It was never during the commercials that you had to wiggle and jiggle those ears, and    even then, the picture wasn’t all that clear.

6. Mimeographed sheets

            Even if you didn’t mind the smell, you still couldn’t read the writing.

7.  No ethnic food except for Italian and Chinese.

8. And you call that stuff Chinese?

9.  Beehive hairdos

10. Movies only in the movie theater

            Yes, there was something special about going to a theater.  There still is. But what          if you want to watch a movie on a rainy day or when you’re at home with the flu or when          you’re just in the mood for a good flick?

                       

The Never Ending Diet

           Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about a certain number: 60. Or, to be more precise, 60 minus 40 days. But there’s another number that has consumed even more of my energy and angst over the years, a number that you’ll never hear me say aloud. No, not my social security number. My weight.

I’ve been trying to lose 5 pounds for as long as I can remember.  Sometimes I lose them. Sometimes I find them. And then I have to lose my five pounds all over again.

I wasn’t born on a diet, though it does feel that way. My father was in the founding chapter of Weight Watchers. This was before points or e-tools or even artificial sweeteners, and WW was strictly for the overweight. (In fact my sister was sent home because she didn’t weigh enough to join!) From what I could tell, the basic premise was that food should be as bland and unappealing as possible. And believe me, ours was.

Which is one reason I was so excited about the huge box of diet “Ayds” my freshman roommate brought to college. If eaten right before a meal, these miracle Ayds were supposed to depress your appetite.  I’m not sure what the active ingredient was – or if there even was one -- but they tasted a lot like chocolate. And we both loved chocolate. So Judith and I would have one before a meal, a couple after, and a fistful whenever the urge hit. We didn’t lose a single ounce, but we quickly became friends. And countless diets later, we’re still great friends. By the way, it’s probably just a coincidence that Judith’s birthday is the day after mine. Which makes her, as you’ve figured out, 60 minus 41 days.

Over the years, I’ve talked dieting with friends and dieted together with friends. It’s kind of like shopping, but without the clothes. Together, we’ve sat through Weight Watcher meetings. We’ve shared diets and recipes and strategies, and we’ve confessed our lapses into ice cream and candy and pie.   

It’s been a lot of work to lose 5 pounds. Again and again and again. And yes, it does feel like time and effort misspent. I mean it’s not like I want my tombstone to read: She kept her weight within a healthy range all her life.

Really, isn’t it time I outgrew this obsession?

Recently, I talked with a friend’s 90-year-old mother.  She’s healthy and active and still very much engaged in life. She looked great to me, but she confided that she wants to lose five pounds. 

I know just where she can find them! 

Leaving Grandma in our Dust

            Last night, I saw Iron Lady, and Meryl Streep’s performance was wonderful. It wasn’t just the make-up and the costuming – she was Margaret Thatcher. And in the opening scene, she was a very old Margaret Thatcher. She hobbled into a bodega, fumbled with her purse and bought a pint of milk, and no one in the store or on the street recognized her as the former Prime Minister and leader of the free world.

            Which isn’t all that surprising.  I mean who pays any attention to old ladies, except to complain about them on the road?

            Well, now that I’m 60 minus 41 days, I think that should change. Better yet, it should change retroactively because I never really paid much attention to the old when I was young.

            I’m thinking of my own grandmother. Grandma was a short timid woman, who walked in small mincing steps, a little unsteadily and never very far. She adored her grandchildren, but she never got down on the floor with us or threw a ball or played make believe. She always dressed in heels and hose, not that any adults knew from sneakers back then.

            Although Grandma was born here, her hold on the country seemed tenuous at best. She worried about nearly everything, especially whether a miscreant du jour was Jewish. Thank god she didn’t live to hear the name Madoff.  Her quiet voice would always get lost around a big holiday table, and while she’d smile at our jokes and antics, we were never quite convinced she understood. A woman born around the turn of the last century, Grandma was unprepared for the 1960s. And we were too busy embracing our own lives to try to bring her up to date.

            Styles change, and old today is much more active and robust. Yesterday, for instance, I took a walk with my sister.  Marcy is now a grandmother herself and, in case you don’t already know, she’s just a couple of years older than me, not that she looks a day over 60 minus 41 days.  We walked a few miles at a very brisk pace that would have left our grandmother in our dust.

            Still some things don’t change. Obviously, there’s always going to be a sizeable age gap between children and their grandparents. And I don’t think Grandma chose not to bridge that gap.  She just didn’t know how, and we didn’t try hard enough to help her.

            So I just hope that someday (god willing, and no pressure intended) my grandchildren will try a little harder with me.

The Hippy Within

            Yesterday was Purim, and for a costume, I wore a hippy outfit. Not my original bell bottoms, which I must have given away decades ago, but a pretty good facsimile if I say so myself.  Along with the professional athletes, princesses, witches and aliens, there was a smattering of hippies. But I’m pretty sure all the other hippies – and their parents – were born after 1970.  So I think I was the only one who felt like the real thing.

            It’s kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it, to dress in costume – as your real self?

            Now don’t jump to any conclusions. I’m not saying that I was a pothead or lived on a commune or followed the Grateful Dead from concert to concert. No, this hippy went to college and got good grades and didn’t take many steps on the wild side.

            So what makes me still feel like a hippy?

            I still don’t trust authority figures.  Okay, so now I trust a lot more people over 30, but certainly not everyone. I never feel all that surprised when I hear that a politician has done something despicable. Isn’t that what they do?

            I’m uncomfortable with convention or pretension. Don’t tell me that’s the way it’s always been done.  And please, don’t try to impress me with your money or knowledge or airs.  

            And finally I still love the music and the style.  I’m talking about the natural look: long hair, blue jeans, sandals, peasant tops, no make-up.  You have to remember that we were rebelling against hair that was teased and lacquered until it could withstand a 75-mph gale wind. Not to mention girdles and white gloves and little black dresses. It was great to let it all hang out.

            Still it’s not all that easy to head off to school in bellbottoms with little flowers stuck on them. So before I ventured out of the house, I insisted my husband look up from his newspaper.

            “How do I look?” I asked.       
            “You look just like you used to when I first met you,” he said.
            Oh, one more thing about hippies:  they’re forever young. Or at least young at heart.

Even Jokes Take Work

There was an interesting article in the New York Times about comedian Myq Kaplan. It seems Myq (pronounced Mike) spends a few months perfecting each joke. First he tries a joke out in a live performance, tapes the show and then studies the audience’s reaction. The next time out, he’ll change the joke a bit, and again, he’ll pour over the tape to analyze just how loudly the audience laughs. Over time, Myq will continue to tweak a single joke because, as he says, every word matters.

            Who knew it was so hard to make people laugh?

            I never heard Myq perform – or even heard of him -- until I saw the article this week. Of course, he’s been on Letterman and Conan, so maybe he’s already a household name. But I only watch those shows when I’ve got insomnia, and lately, I’ve been sleeping very well, thank you very much. In any event, Myq is a young, skinny kid with glasses, and in the bits I saw on YouTube, he’s very funny with a zany verbal wit. If I hadn’t read the article, I would’ve assumed he’s just naturally funny. And no doubt Myq is. He just works on it so that he’s even funnier.

            I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just want things to be easy. I know that must sound whiny. What with all the young lawyers serving pizza to pay off loans since they can’t land law jobs. Or the tornado victims still in shock, looking at the shatter of their lives.  Not to mention everyone else who’s working harder and longer, just to stay still – that’s if they’re lucky enough to have jobs.

            But for some naïve reason, I thought that when I reached 60 minus 44 days, I’d be coasting along, having already met every self-imposed goal and then some. Instead, here I am, 12 years into the job, working even harder as a teacher because I want to do it better. Same with my writing. It takes a lot of work to get it just right.         

            So it’s nice to keep in mind that even a good joke takes work.