When your heart's on fire

I was absent-mindedly whistling “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” which is a pleasant melody, but if you listen to the words it becomes deeply troubling. The storyline is that the singer is in love but their friends think the affair will end badly and when it does, our protagonist is subjected to cruel torrents of jocular derision –  the lyric goes, “Now, laughing friends deride tears I cannot hide.” So the takeaway here is that the singer is the world’s worst judge of character. On an unrelated topic, I’m disappointed to learn that “bedridden” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.

But maybe not Neil Diamond

Sometimes you have an idea or perspective or  just get a vibe and you don’t know why but you’re pretty sure you’re right. For instance, for no good reason I’m predisposed to think that people from Michigan or Pennsylvania will be good-natured. It’s my impression that spending some time in Guam would be pleasant but I’m leery of Samoa. I’m more prepared to like electricians and violists than plumbers and oboists. Also, based on zero data I’m fairly sure that if you got the chance to meet him, you’d come away thinking, “That Neil Sedaka is a darn nice guy.”

The kind of guy I am.

Let me tell you the kind of guy I am. I have an eight hour drive ahead of me, and I haven’t even started packing. Plus, there was a cookout and the kids were feeding my dog all sorts of crap and he got the Dire Rear and I had to glove up and clip vile clumps from around his fundament. Some guys would say, screw it, who cares about the readers, I’ll just skip writing my 100 word rant this week. Not me. I care too much about every one of you. That’s the kind of guy I am.

Wallowing in bitter regret here

We’ve been traveling a bit recently, including one night in a motel on the outskirts of Wytheville, Virginia. As you are doubtless aware, that municipality is home to a notable Very Big Pencil, a yellow number two suspended over the entrance to an office supply store. But we were in kind of a hurry, and there were the dogs to worry about, and we just skipped it. Come to find out, we could have also seen the birthplace of the wife of Woodrow Wilson and eaten at Skeeter's World Famous Hotdogs. Once again, I’ve let Life’s Bright Promise slip away.