Unforgettable, that's what you are

Remember being five? Can you remember being excited about getting permanent teeth? Well, they’re not. They’re not permanent. Even if you keep them in your head for your whole life, those few decades hardly qualify as any paragon of permanence. All tattoos are temporary. Eventually, even diamonds aren’t forever. That’s fine with me; I’m cool with our perishability. And considering how little time we actually spend here, I believe short-term fixes are the best. I live that conviction. Like, I have a shed out back that at this point consists almost entirely of that canned foam from the hardware store.

Obligatory what’s-his-name reference

The man says "believe me" a lot. You only say that when you're lying. Everybody knows that. The embarrassing thing is not just that he's (insert invective here), but that he's not very good at it. Seriously, the guy couldn’t sell me aluminum siding. I'm ashamed of my racist, xenophobic, angry, disappointed, confused and spiteful fellow citizens, not because they are racist, xenophobic, angry, disappointed, confused and spiteful (hey, nobody's perfect) but because they are such poor shoppers in the marketplace of ideas. Is this the best rabid hate-spewing fear monger the greatest nation on Earth can produce? I weep.

Drawing a Blanc

This one time we were listening to the car radio and a bluegrass song started with a mandolin pickup and I said, “That’s Ricky Skaggs.” And it was; I had got it right in the beat and a half before the downbeat. I’ve heard that old-time telegraphers could identify who was tapping out Morse code, they said they recognized the sender’s “hand,” as distinctive as a voice. Or more so. The other day, the kitchen radio was playing and I said, “Is that Elmer Fudd singing ‘Skylark?’” And she listened for a moment and said, “I think it’s Bob Dylan.”