This one had me howling, in Comments:
Tag: Me Myself I
Personal stuff
Policy Change
As all Readers know, I prefer that comments be more or less attached to the post topic, because otherwise things can get out of control, and I lack the patience and good humor to keep going back to the thing to fix it up.
But I suspect that a lot of you would like to get things off your collective chest, and sound off about something that has irritated / angered / pleased / aroused you, whatever.
This has become evident in the popularity of “Open Post” features (Insty can get thousands of comments in his free-for-all posts, for example).
So from now on, I am declaring my News Roundup posts to be open for all or any comments, regardless of topic. As you know, they appear every Tuesday and Friday, so each week you get two whacks of the axe, so to speak. (If you have trouble logging in to comment, let me know by email; I’ll pass it on to TSII, and he will get to it as time permits.)
Enjoy — I’m not going to censor or delete anything, unless it’s completely horrible or egregious ad hominem attacks on other Readers (my back porch, my judgment, no appeal). I think you all know my limits by now, so it should be easy.
And FFS, please don’t use this freedom to try to fuck me over, because that will not end well (for you).
A Day In My Life
Indulge me please, O Gentle Readers, while I recount my activities last Friday. They were nothing special, but there were a couple of highlights.
Woke up a little late after a night which featured “episodic sleep” — other Olde Pharttes will know whereof I speak — and finally fell into some proper sleep at about 5am.
Got up, did the usual Morning Stuff (Rx, urination etc.) and staggered out of the bedroom to make the morning coffee. Debated about the gin, decided against it as I’d taken New Wife out for a Birthday Dinner the night before, and drunk perhaps a leetle too much sangria. (Everything in moderation, that’s me.)
Coffee in hand, I discovered lying on my keyboard an empty bottle of some female facial cleansing lotion, and a plaintive note asking me to get her a fresh bottle.
Excellent: a reason to get out of the house and do some husbandly / housekeeping duties — some groceries, fill the car, nothing special.
On the way out of the apartment complex parking lot, I saw something unusual: a decently-styled American car: I think it was a Buick, but as far as I’m aware they (like Lincoln) don’t make passenger sedans anymore, and the badge was too small for me to make the model out, whatever it was, but then again I’m not in the market for anything like that so I pootled out over the irritating speed bumps [1,000-word angry rant omitted].
Decided on Wal-Mart, simply because they’re just up the road and as I said, I needed to refill the Tiguan and their gas is reasonably priced.
I turned left across the traffic, and noted that there was an oncoming car just down the road, but the speed limit is 35mph, so plenty of room. Except that he wasn’t doing 35 or anything close to it, so he swerved out of my lane and rocketed past me, shaking his fist (!) as he went by.
I had one of my quiet conversations at that point: “I’m sorry; did I make you late for your appointment at the next traffic light?”
As it happened, I didn’t; but he was right on time for the cop doing the speed trap a block or so away. So that ended well.
Went into Wal-Mart and got all the necessary things on the list — but before checking out, I stopped by the self-service lottery machine to make my weekly pension contribution. As any fule kno, these contraptions do not give change, and all I had was a $20.
So I went over to the little in-house bank to get some change, only to be told that they don’t do that kind of thing unless the supplicant has an account with them. “Well, I don’t have an account with you, and probably won’t ever in the future,” I replied, and went over to the Customer Service Desk.
Only to be told that they cannot open the register drawer unless “there’s a cash transaction”.
Another man may have exploded with rage at this point, but I decided to be a better man than that. So I went back into the store itself and left my shopping cart in the clothing section, where it wouldn’t be spotted immediately — said shopping cart containing two cartons of expensive ice cream, a quart of yogurt, a frozen pizza and some fresh fruit.
Got into the car and decided to go to my old neighborhood Kroger instead, where everybody knows my name (I’ve been shopping there for well over twenty years, and the only reason I hadn’t gone there in the first place was because it’s about three miles away from the apartment AND it lies on the other side of some serious road repair works).
So I went where everybody knows my name — and where quite a few people know everybody else’s name, to judge from the odd person chatting to another in the parking lot. Took an old lady’s cart from her just as she’d finished unloading it, getting a grateful “You’re my hero! Thank you!” which made me feel quite better about my world.
Went into Kroger, got all the stuff I’d left in the cart at Wal-Mart plus a few other impulse items, and went over to the Customer Service Desk’s Jeanelle, who not only gave me change upon request, but got me my lottery tickets from their machine. (She has a lovely singing voice, by the way: one of those deep, rich gospel/soul ones, which I’d heard on a previous trip. She is also one of the few people who has ever tripped me up on musical trivia, in that she knew the correct release date of Stevie Wonder’s album Songs In The Key Of Life.)
Checked out using the self-service aisle (I only go full service if I’ve got a large full cart, and that in the interests of speed), waved good-bye to Angela the supervisor, waved to Debbie the front-end manager on my way out, and after loading up the Tiguan, filled up at the pump using my Kroger Fuel Points (11c off per gallon when buying more than 8 gallons).
Got back home — the ?Buick? was no longer there for me to see what it actually was, so I filed that under “Unimportant Shit” and forgot about it.
Net result of the day: considerable personal satisfaction (mission accomplished, grocerywise; watched an asshole get a speeding ticket; denied Wal-Mart some profit both from an unrealized transaction plus — I hope — some spoiled unsellable foods, as well as having my gas money go to their competitor).
And I got to interact with people that I don’t really know, but had only pleasant experiences with. On a warm autumn day (no a/c needed in the car) in north Texas.
Not too bad, all things considered.
Gentle Reminder
In case anyone here has been asleep for the past couple of decades, and just in case I haven’t been clear enough in the past (pictures say it best): 
Any questions?
Oh, and by the way: for the past week, I’ve been wearing a kippah every time I leave the house. Pity the fool.
The Swinging Sixties
Not the 1960s, this time, but the time when you enter your sixth decade of life. This article talks about it, somewhat superficially, but number of items had me nodding along. Here are a few examples:
By age 60, you should have acquired almost everything you need, or learned to live without it. Possessions start to feel like an albatross, so you don’t blow as much money on dumb stuff like clothes, makeup, new phones, and cars.
Very true in my case. Just about every thing I own is old and still works. I don’t remember the last time I bought a new shirt, for instance — even though I take considerable pride in my appearance and always make sure I look presentable. New Wife has almost given up on making me wear short pants in public, and thank gawd that fall and winter are coming so that this clothing choice becomes less viable. I have too many pairs of shoes, certainly “dress” shoes (a hangover from my time as a corporate executive / business consultant) and considering that I have only one suit left, I can’t see any reason for owning more than one pair of my old black Johnston & Murphy toecaps. I practically live in Minnetonka moccasins — I own three pairs in moosehide tan, dark brown and black, and just replace them as they start wearing out, about every three years or so. I hardly ever wore denim jeans after my twenties because I found denim less comfortable than gaberdine or even linen trousers. New Wife has prevailed on me to start wearing them again because she says I look good in them. I discovered Target’s stretch jeans and now have a pair each of “washed out” (light blue) and normal dark blue, so these are my “go to the supermarket” choice nowadays. Also, the belt loops are wider than my “dress” trousers, which is a Good Thing because it accommodates my 1911’s holster better. I never wear T-shirts except around the house — that habit, like wearing denim, disappeared once I left my teens, and I have (too many) short- and long-sleeved cotton and linen shirts. Even those… sheesh, some of them are close to twenty years old, although they don’t look it because when I find a shirt I really like, I buy three or four of them, in different colors if available, and rotate them so that they don’t wear out.
Sorry, that’s all TMI and getting boring so let me get on with some of the other stuff.
You get smart about people. I can now tell far more easily whom to trust versus who is trying to take advantage of me. These were things I was oblivious to when I was younger, but now I see things a lot clearer.
When I was younger, I pretty much always took people at face value and trusted them to be decent. This was reflected in my circle of friends, which was vast. Now? I’m a lot more suspicious — sometimes incorrectly — of people and their motives, and this is reflected in a much-smaller number of people whom I can truthfully call friends. I don’t care about that, especially; I have about a dozen people (scattered all over the globe) whom I consider good friends, but even among them, only half or so are people whom I would allow to show up at my front door without warning and be welcomed into my house.
There’s a certain, almost dangerous, level of personal liberation. Kind of like, “I’m only gonna live for a few more years, so what could anyone possibly do to me?” This liberation in me, at least, has manifested in almost extreme levels of mouthiness. I say what I am feeling and thinking, I am NOT sensitive to anyone’s attempts to hurt my feelings, and I don’t really care if I hurt their feelings, either.
I will admit that this didn’t come to me in my sixties: it’s been my attitude pretty much my whole life. I have absolutely no concern about other people’s opinions of me, to the point where I literally don’t care if I offend someone and they never want to talk to me again. Frankly, the only people whose opinions I care about are those of my family and very close friends. Interestingly enough, my friends know this about me and indulge my occasionally-thoughtless outbursts. Strangers, I don’t care about and never have.
Knowing that you are fully formed. You don’t have to take on any more self-improvement projects, even though you surely can if you really want to. But I don’t need to improve my posture, my vocabulary, or my attitude; I can do whatever I want now.
By 60, I felt as if I had my life figured out. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I no longer had the feeling that I had missed the ‘life manual’ everyone else seemed to have.
I came to terms with myself at about age thirty: my character, my flaws, my strengths and so on. I also made the decision that I could live with my flaws, which is a little dangerous. I can be very cold-hearted or indifferent at times, for example, and that I do try to temper but without much success. Frankly, it’s one of the reasons I don’t do well living by myself: I need what’s been called the “gentling effect” of a woman in my life, and fortunately I have been blessed by having two of them for the past couple of decades. As a single guy, I tend very close to the psychopathic, but as a married man I’m not too bad a guy.
Anxiety. At least for me, I’ve gotten quite better at managing the anxiety of the unknown and keeping it in its rightful place.
In his wonderful TV series After Life, Ricky Gervais’s character and actions are shaped by the fact that he literally does not care if he lives or dies after the death of his beloved wife. As I’ve lived my sixties, I’ve become accustomed to that fact — not because of loss of a partner, but because I know that my time on Earth is going to end at some point in the foreseeable future. I have little fear of that, so should catastrophe come calling — say, in the form of an incurable illness — I know that I’ll always have the option of popping a few tabs to relax me, and climbing into a hot bath with a bottle of gin and a razor blade. The only thing that gives me any pause is that unlike Gervais’s character, I have kids who would miss me and might even be horribly saddened by my passing. So I do want to spare them that, but at the same time, if things really got bad and my life truly turned into total shit, I’d hope they understood my situation — especially my absolute resolve never to be a burden on them. I should point out that New Wife shares my attitude completely.
I’ve had a full, satisfying and very exciting life, and I have few if any regrets about it. Stuff that other people only dream about doing or experiencing, well, I’ve done most of it myself and other than a few things I’ve missed out on and wouldn’t have minded trying (e.g. skydiving), my life has been pretty complete. I’ve never been competitive, and always had a lazy streak to where “good enough” has never been the enemy of “perfect”; I simply lack the drive to be “the best” at anything, and to be honest, I’m not sure that my capabilities would have been sufficient anyway. And that’s one of the things that came to me much earlier than my sixties: understanding that “nothing is impossible” is total bullshit. Often, striving to reach the impossible involves making compromises that to me at any rate are not only unsupportable but insufferable. As the saying goes: nobody ever lay on their deathbed thinking: “If only I’d spent more time at the office.”
I was a competent (occasionally more than) as a businessman, ditto a bassist, ditto a writer and ditto just about anything I’ve ever done. My goal in life has always been “as long as I don’t make a fool of myself, that’s good enough.”
And that’s enough about me.
Open Letter
Over the past year or so I’ve become increasingly concerned about some of you, O My Readers, most especially among the most ahem senior of you (chronologically speaking).
The fact is that we’re starting to drop like flies, and as much as I hate to admit it, just having someone disappear from one’s life is unsettling. Here’s an example.
Bobby Kushner (Bob K) was an old Chicago buddy; one of my earliest Readers, many was the time we shared war stories and opinions on guns, politics, life in Chicago and such. We only ever met in person on three occasions, mind: once over dinner at a lovely restaurant on Clark Street, once when he very graciously put me up overnight at his apartment in Lincoln Park, and once at a friend’s farm (belonging to Scott S, then and still a friend as well as a Longtime Reader). On that last occasion, Bob brought a couple of very large duffel bags, both filled to the brim with old handguns — good grief, some models I’d never even heard of, let alone fired — along with a plentiful supply of ammo for each, and that entire day was spent shooting all of them.
Of course, we kept in touch over the following years, sporadically as so often happens, and then… silence. Emails went into the pit, and I never heard from him again. Bob was of advanced years and in poor health, but I only learned about that from his wife (confusingly, also Bobby — Roberta). So when he went dark, I had to assume that he’d popped his clogs — he’d always responded promptly to my “LTNS” letters in the past. Worse still, I didn’t know how to get in touch with his wife, so I never did find out.
So, to all my Old Fart Readers — and you know who you are — please drop me an email occasionally so I know how things are going. It’s not an obligation, of course, but having lost Bobby so suddenly and unknowingly, I really don’t want to experience that again. I do have a bond with you guys — sorry, but there it is — so please keep in touch now and again.
I’m grateful for this opportunity to voice a question which has nagged me for many years: is Kim Du Toit really an American?
Look, I know you faced the choice: legally immigrate to America or be beaten to death in a cargo container. Anyone who has not faced that situation has no standing to say which is the moral choice. Nevertheless, your choice is questionable.
No reasonable person can doubt your commitment to constitutional, republican governance; to the public order so essential to the thriving of civilization; to entrepreneurship and the creative power of capital; to national defense; and ultimately to the rights and prerogatives of the individual.
However, you have certain… cosmopolitan tendencies, which cast doubt on your true allegiance. You have traveled to England and maybe even to Stockholm; places where child molesters are tolerated. We patriotic, heartland Americans might overlook such peccadilloes… except for one thing.
We can’t pronounce your name. Americans have made no secret of this: we cannot hear or pronounce French vowels or terminal consonants, and we understandably become violent when anybody points this out.
Previous generations of immigrants had the good sense to Americanize their names, is all I’m saying.
All good stuff, and it gave me much amusement. Let me take them in reverse order. Firstly, here’s the story of the name.
When I became a U.S. citizen — I mean, on the very day I was sworn in — I was asked if I wanted to change my name.
It was the first I’d heard of this option; nobody had ever told me I could do it when I became a citizen. All I had to do was give a new name right there, and that would be the one on my passport and naturalization certificate (and SocSec database, automatically).
Had I changed it — one option was “Dalton” because it sorta sounds like “Doo-twah” and had two syllables, but I needed to think about it — it’s a big deal, changing one’s name — and I had to make a decision right there and then.
So I didn’t.
And lo and behold, I found over time that people liked it — they said it sounded really cool and exotic — and it was quite a hit with the ladies, along with this kinda-fake Brit accent that I picked up at school.
Interestingly enough, when I asked both my American wives (Son&Heir’s mom, and Connie) if they wanted to keep their respective surnames instead of being saddled with this strange French thing, they not only refused, but refused loudly and emphatically. (New Wife, when I asked her the same question, just gave me That Look so I changed the subject hastily.)
As to the other charges:
However, you have certain…cosmopolitan tendencies, which cast doubt on your true allegiance. You have traveled to England and maybe even to Stockholm; places where child molesters are tolerated. We patriotic, heartland Americans might overlook such peccadilloes…
(I chuckle helplessly again, even as I type this.)
I realize that the charge of “cosmopolitanism” is a serious one, especially to Middle America (the class to which I aspire, and the one with which I identify the most strongly).
But FFS, just because I speak several other languages that most Murkins can’t, and I like visiting foreign lands, and can tell the difference between Baroque- and Norman architecture, and likewise between Academy- and Romantic art, and Chopin and Schubert’s music, does this make me less American?
I even admit to preferring croissants over Wonder Bread, sausage rolls over hot dogs, and Victoria sponge cake instead of apple pie. (I draw the line at BBQ, however: no other food can compare.)
And I’m really sorry, but Wadworth 6X is just a better goddamn beer than fucking Budweiser or Coors.
Frankly, I think that Americans could do with a little more cosmopolitanism, if for no other reason than to break the bonds of bullshit American marketing of mediocre/awful products like the above (and let’s not forget “American” cheese, which is truly fucking horrible and no man should).
And I’m happy to do my bit to advance that cause, on these here pages and on this back porch of mine.
By the way: I’ve never been to Stockholm, and I think child molesters should be burned at the stake, after extensive torture.