Memoirous

The first of the new year there is always so much hope. Then the days turn gloomy and dreary and the sweets are all gone. As it happened, I had four days off (slow season at bike shops) and my daughter didn’t need me to babysit, so I hopped a train to Chicago. I knew from living there that Chicago is just as dreary and gloomy, but the museums are mostly free. The visit was sandwiched with meeting friends at coffee shops and sitting for long hours chatting. Yesss!! I had so many conversations and meeting up with friends broken up by trips to area museums. There’s nothing quite like the slow feel of the Art Institute on a Monday winter afternoon. No one is in a hurry. There was no crowd around Hopper’s Nighthawks. The painting was just as lonely and isolated as the figures framed within. Surprisingly there were new additions to the galleries. I had the feeling that during the pandemic someone rooted around in the vaults and brought some new stuff to light. It appeared there were mo...

I was a very idealistic kid: I wanted to the change the world. Unfortunately I’ve grown up. Yet I still want to change the world. On the other hand I have no skills to stop/prevent: Crime Face-eating zombies Young boys from drowning Young girls from falling Climate change Greece from defaulting America from imminent collapse Face it—there is so much bad news out there that I can do nothing about, except read/hear/watch it on the news. AND there is more bad news about the news: Newspapers are dying! http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-12/times-picayune-cutting-half-of-newsroom-staff There is no such thing as fair and unbiased! Media frenzy/hysteria/overload! I can do nothing about the above either. Even the stuff I think I have control over is a fiction. My fiction is fiction—so too is a lot of my non-fiction. Just getting up each morning is a leap of faith. There is one skill I do have and which I frequently employ—my ability to write. ...