Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:
***
I just aged by 10 years overnight.
For some reason, people keep posting things on Facebook asking how old you would be if you reversed the two digits in your age. When I asked asked that yesterday, I could say 17.
As of today, it’s 27. Yikes!
***
If there’s one thing I will never understand, it’s people who have neutral feelings about Donald Trump.
Because if there’s one thing America’s favorite insurrectionist isn’t, it’s nondescript. I can understand the people who despise him and I can even understand the people who love him.
But I’ll never understand people who say their feeligs about him are “tepid,” and that he’s neither that bad or that good.
Oh well. We’re nearing the end of the countdown to Mencken’s 100 years.
***
I don’t want to get too obsessed with the aging thing. Yes, I’m turning 72 today, and it’s not a retirement thing. I’ve been “retired” since I was 58, so it’s nothing new to me.
But I have more and more friends and relatives who are younger than I am who are retired. That’s wherew it starts getting weird to me.
I’m not just retired, I’m tired.
***
I’ll give a SPOILER ALERT with this one.
One thing came into my mind after the 41st anniversary of John Lennon’s murder three days ago. In the wonderful movie “Yesterday” (2019), when something happens and a young musician realizes he is the only person in the world who remembers that the Beatles ever existed, he has a chance to meet an 80-year-old John Lennon.
This Lennon was never a musician and was never famous, but our main character was just so happy that he got to live the second half of his life. Maybe the sweetest moment in a sweet movie.
***
The picture at the beginning is of course the house I lived in from age 13 till I moved out to get married in my mid 20s.
When I was in Virginia last April for my mother’s funeral, I thought I was setting foot in the house for the last time. I got a few things that were mine and left, figuring the house would be sold this summer.
But we had some health setbacks that made it more difficult and it’s just now being turned over to a realtor (yes, I know realtors want the word capitalized). As it turns out, I’m going to Virginia one last time — basically for one day — to help get a few things cleared out.
It’s very strange. There are five of us now with our parents gone, and we’re spread out all over the country and maybe soon the world. The last time all five of us were together was May 2008 for our father’s funeral. The pandemic limited attendance at our mother’s funeral this year.
I have a feeling that if all five of us are in the same place at the same time again, I will be in a box.