My girlfriend makes fun of me because I always stop at crosswalks, press the button and wait. I tell her I do that because I see people run red lights in Hartford almost every day. This morning was no exception. I took a walk to the ATM, and on the way back I watched a…
The warehouse I work in does natural, organic, and specialty food. That means there’s a lot of ethnic/imported foods, a lot of kosher foods, and a lot of brands that I wasn’t familiar with before working there. One that I ran across the other day is called Autocrat Coffee. I did an actual double take…
I haven’t gotten a haircut in eight or nine months. I know haircuts have been allowed since the summer, but it strikes me as a high risk/low reward activity. I have to say, I’m loving it. It doesn’t look good. I’m well aware of that. Aside from being too old for long hair, I’ve been…
I’m tired of people saying there’s no such thing as magic. That’s one of my least favorite features of the modern world. We have science now, so no more magic. There’s Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” When people say that, they usually mean that whatever we are…
I bought toilet paper today. I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but this is 2020. We had the great toilet paper shortage this spring. I was baffled at the time. I get the milk and bread runs when people are panicked, but toilet paper? I never did hear a good explanation for…
I was starting to feel slightly optimistic. Yes, it’s true that over 80,000 people had already died, but mourning the dead and being outraged at their deaths doesn’t preclude optimism. And as I watched Dr. Fauci’s testimony on Wednesday before Congress, I allowed myself to feel better. Aside from the usual political grandstanding, there were…
One of the most challenging aspects of the pandemic is trying to predict the future we’re going to face. So many aspects of our lives are going to be affected that it’s impossible to guess how things will turn out. But some things have already begun to change, in both big and small ways. I’m…
I’ve been really down since all of this started, like many people. This pandemic is bad. But part of my anxiety comes from not knowing how bad the pandemic is- that makes it difficult to plan for the future, and allows my imagination to go to some dark places regarding all of this. That anxiety…
The inept federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the needless deaths of thousands of people, have gotten me back into writing about politics. My first piece back was about Bernie Sanders. While I still think it needed to be said, I don’t want to be negative all the time. This is a time where…
After reading Joe Biden’s unimaginative, business-as-usual op-ed in the New York Times, I wondered, “How has the progressive left come to this?” In the end, it was Bernie Sanders as the progressive representative against Biden, and to be honest, I disliked both of these candidates equally. My dream candidate, Stacey Abrams, didn’t run, and my…
