I’m suffering from multiple generation gaps, what you cannot get in Kentucky, and a few thoughts about unsurprising surprises, on sale this week only…

1. Am I the only one who can’t remember which generation is which, or why I should care about it at all? Every day, maybe every hour or two, I’m seeing some new report on the opinions and habits of Gen X versus Gen Y versus Millennials versus Zebras and it feels more and more like a new form of horoscope. It’s worse than a horoscope, really, because the experts disagree on exactly which years define which groups, some of the start/end years overlap and there doesn’t seem to be a unifying theory about why one generation gave way to the next. Yes, Millennials like email and Gen Xers love text, but that’s the best you’ve got?
   
   
2. The cruelest sentence I hear these days is, “They would have died from something anyway.” Mostly, I’ll be talking with someone about pandemic deaths among older people and my conversation partner will dismiss the loss of life by noting that the victims were old and they would die somehow, and soon, so why not from Covid? Well, yes, all of us die of something, so the comment is true, but that doesn’t mean they would have died now, that they had no dreams or plans, that they were fine with dying because, hell, who wants another five or ten years? Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe this thought truly is consoling to people. Perhaps I should give it a shot and, next time I’m at a funeral, just mention to the family that their loved one was going to die of anyway, so this was as good a time as any.
   
   
3. I know a bunch of people who hate Illinois, hate Chicago, think the future here is a dystopian hellscape of killer taxes, killer wokeness and, well, killers. They haven’t moved, though, and they aren’t likely to do so, for two major reasons. First, if they move to one of the many Edenic locales they pine for, they’ll discover there’s something they don’t like there, either. Second, this is a great place to live. Yes, the taxes are high and the crime rate is unsettling, but the restaurants are first-rate, the tap water is clean, the entertainment venues are top-notch and we can fly non-stop almost anywhere in the world from our local airport. Also, you can’t get a good hot dog in Kentucky.
   
   
4. I’m continually surprised at our ability to be surprised by things that are seriously unsurprising. The pandemic brought shutdowns and shortages that led to huge inflation in some areas and huge deflation in others, disruptions to the supply chain and repurposing of factories to meet new demand patterns. Our recovery brought different shutdowns and shortages that led to huge inflation in some areas and huge deflation in others, disruptions to the supply chain and repurposing of factories to meet new demand patterns. OMG, gasoline is cheap when nobody is driving and expensive when people hit the road! Maybe it’s true that we were all born yesterday. 
   
   
5. At some point, we’ve accommodated someone for so long that we’re just in too deep and there is no reasonable way to get out of the situation. Whether it’s a friend or a relative or a co-worker who always seems to need just a bit of help, we take a single step on the slippery slope and enlist in a lifetime of service. Pretty much every one of us is caught in one or more of these vicious circles, either as the perpetrator or the one who gets perpetrated. (Yeah, bad grammar, but you get the point.) It never seems like a big deal, the first time, but then it’s a permanent part of your life. Pay the bills, walk the dog, look something up online for Agnes-who-could-learn-how-to-use-the-internet-but-won’t. Sort the laundry, do the dishes, send a few bucks to Fred-who-needs-an-advance-just-this-once. My friend asked me, “What’s the kindest way to do nothing?” and I really don’t have an answer for that one.
   
   
6. With workers in short supply for the first time in forever, this is a great time to be entering the workforce. All kinds of career opportunities are opening up as Baby Boomers race for the exits and former corporate minions open their own consulting businesses from their basements. We were headed for a labor shortage at the end of 2019, but the pandemic added a huge catalyst to the trend. If there’s any group that’s going to benefit ginormously from this whole thing, it’s people leaving school over the next few years.
   
   
7. Speaking of which, if there’s one job we really need to fill, it’s fixer. No, not the guy who makes sure the long-shot wins the race, but the person who cleans up the mess that’s left by all the web developers, app developers, marketers, lawyers…pretty much everyone. We’ve all run across website glitches, corrupted links, confusing phrases, and all kinds of other mistakes with the businesses we visit, but there’s no way to get them fixed. That’s because nobody has a career stake in correcting someone else’s mistake. Nobody’s getting promoted for spending the day changing affect to effect or redirecting the link that continually brings us back to the same page. This should be a career with huge job security, but don’t count on it.
   
   
8. There’s a sign by the river that says we’re in Potawatomi Land, and I guess that’s true. But you could also say this is Beavertown or Pteradactylvania, because they were here first, as well. In the suburbs, the naturalists are continually fighting to get rid of the buckthorn that Europeans brought over and restore the Prairie to the condition it was in on the exact day that settlers arrived. Even when we think we’re taking the long view about history, we tend to measure it in “me” time.
   

 
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The most influential person in the world, surefire questions for your next encounter at a cocktail party, and the rudest of the rude…all bubbling up in my cerebral cortex this week.

1. I’ve been getting more and more concerned about the number of times I forget something basic and then it takes me a few minutes to remember it and…wait a minute. Maybe I started forgetting things when I was in my 20s, but I didn’t notice it then, but now I’m quick-witted enough to recognize it. Yeah, that’s it. I’m actually getting much better at remembering things as I get older.
   
   
2. Artificial intelligence is much more artificial than intelligent. Whether it’s autotext in messages or answer-bots at the bank website, the robots are really, really bad at their jobs. Now that we’ve pointed out this problem, it’s only a matter of time before companies start hiring people to do the jobs that algorithms can’t. Problem solved.
   
   
3. I’m meeting lots of new people lately and I’ve found the perfect icebreakers for anyone under the age of 40. You can’t miss when you ask either, “What are you streaming lately?” or “Tell me about your tattoo.” For people closer to my age, it’s, “Tell me about your symptoms.”
   
   
4. There are probably responses that are ruder, but the one that irks me the most lately is when you suggest a date/time for a meeting/dinner/call and all you get is a reply that the time doesn’t work. Got it. I’m not that hot about seeing you, either, but you don’t need to be that obvious about it.
   
   
5. First, the biggest lies were, “The check’s in the mail,” and, “It’s not about the money,” and then they got replaced by, “Your call is important,” and “Our options have changed.” Now, though, the biggest lies are, “These light bulbs last ten years,” and “We will protect your personal information.”
   
   
6. One of the saddest lessons I’ve learned from social media is that so many people feel cheated. Even among some people I know who have money, good health, reasonably happy families…it doesn’t matter. Whether the obstacle is the government or a secret cabal or society or someone(s) specific, they know they should be, deserve to be, much better off, and they resent whomever they see as their personal bete noire. Very, very sad.
   
   
7. I’ve always needed to hold back my laughter when someone would tell me their problem was that they’re just too nice, but maybe they were onto something. As we’ve all learned over the past few years, the surest path to success on social media is to be nasty, snarky and generally appalling. This blog would have millions of readers if we could only be rotten enough to make the cut. Maybe we’re just too nice.
   
   
8. The most influential person in the world isn’t the President or the Pope or the Dalai Lama or Xi Jinping or Vladmir Putin or even that girl who dances with yams on Tik Tok. Nope, the most influential person ever is a man with no name. We live in a world of 8,000,000,000 people, with thousands of institutions tracking trends and patterns, but the person with the real answers is, “That guy I read about on the internet.” I sure hope he uses his power for good and not for evil.
   

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I saw this guy I know with a woman who isn’t his wife and it was clearly a test of my decency. I flunked.
 
Minding my own business at lunch, I see a car pull up outside the window and an old friend got out. I had to look twice, because he lives so far away and the restaurant wasn’t exactly the kind of place he raves about on social media. Hah, what are the odds of a chance encounter like this?
 
Then he goes to the passenger door and opens it and this younger woman gets out of the car. Not his wife, not his daughter, maybe a business associate or a potential customer or a cousin or an in-law or…something else.
 
Because, let’s face it, I’m human and I watch TV and movies and I know what’s what in this world of ours. I jumped immediately to hanky, or panky, or both, because it couldn’t be that he was in a far-off location with a younger woman and it was completely innocent. I kept checking them out, from a distance, as they shared a meal. No hand holding, but there were no tablets and notepads on the table, either. Could be innocent, could be guilty, and I concluded that it 127% had to be the latter.
 
Which says more about me than him, really, since I have lunch with women who are not my wife and there’s nothing going on when I’m doing it. Of course, I secretly want people to suspect something, because it might mean I’ve got game, but the truth is always much less interesting. Apparently, I’m not exciting enough to be a suspect of any sort.
 
Actually, that’s not 100% accurate. Last year, my wife took a spill and hit her head. No major damage, luckily, but she ended up with a black eye for a couple of weeks. And every time we went to a restaurant, I could spot people checking out our table and thinking exactly what I would have thought—frequently have thought—when I’ve seen a purple bruise on the woman at a table for two. I’d have taken offense at their presumptions about me, except for that whole pot-and-kettle thing.
 
So I watched the couple at their table for a while, if they were a couple at all, and decided not to stop by and say hello. Maybe I was being discreet and maybe I was being rude. I’ll probably never know, which is fine. It’s none of my business really and I’m fine with not knowing the things I don’t have reason to know, even if I’m pretty sure I really know all of it.
 
Still, by the time I left the restaurant, I was feeling just a little bit less comfortable with myself. When did I make the leap from trusting to cynical? When did I conclude that I’m the only guy who can be trusted in this world? Whenever I crossed that line, I’m not completely sure I like the new me.
 
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Okay, that’s it. I need a purse. Not a man pouch or a murse or a fanny pack…an actual, bonafide, any-woman-would-use-it purse.

Because it’s time I face reality. There aren’t enough pockets for all the crap I have to carry around these days.

I can’t leave the apartment without my phone, of course, and my wallet is bulging with must-have entry cards, transit cards, store loyalty cards, credit cards and a few scraps of legal tender in case the system crashes at Dunkin’ Donuts. (Sorry, they just call it Dunkin’ now, because it would be branding heresy to actually mention the product.)

With all the member/loyalty/credit/debit/gift cards loaded in, my wallet is now four inches thick, even after I’ve tossed out the condoms I hid so hopefully in high school.

Then there’s the sunglasses, the comb and the handkerchief, because the mark of a true man is that he carries a hankie, plus the reading glasses I need now to see the text on my phone. And I’m a writer, so I always need to have a pen and some note cards handy, along with a little binder for the note cards and an extra pen, just in case. I live in a Blue State, so I need to carry a mask when I’m out of my apartment, and then there are the keys for the car, the apartment, the storage locker, the list goes on.

When I stuff it all into my pants and shirt pockets, I look like a prickly pear in bloom, or a really bad shoplifter.  And it goes without saying that I’m bulging in all the wrong places.

For a while, office dress codes were my salvation. I had to wear a suit, and suits have a ton of extra pockets, so I found a way to spread the lumps so that I looked no more than 40 pounds overweight. On the plus side, I looked less rotund than people expected when I took off my jacket and I was getting great cardio carrying my supplies around all day.

But the days of suits are gone and I’m running out of tricks to get everything into place. Absolutely, I need a purse. Not just any purse, though. I need a manly purse, a leather bag with a bicycle chain for a strap, steel buckles and a clasp that looks like a deadbolt. I need a purse that’s too threatening to get through airport security, the kind that says, “I’m here, I’m cisgender, get used to it.”

Carrying a purse won’t be the toughest part of this adjustment to reality, though. Worse, I’m going to have to apologize to all the women I’ve mocked for carrying ridiculously large, overstuffed purses with enough supplies for a three-hour tour.

All in good fun, ladies, just kidding around, really laughing with you and not at you, you know. Now that I’m joining the sisterhood of traveling apothecaries, all is forgiven, right?

Right?

Hello?

Hmm…maybe I should just buy some cargo shorts and a safari vest. Who knows? I might start a fashion trend.

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Now that we’re starting our third year of this thing, it’s time to revisit our mass delusions…

1. On one level, it doesn't really matter if a state decides to close restaurants or require masks or institute other limitations in response to Omicron. People get sick, they stay home from work, and short-handed businesses or schools end up closing anyway. Everyone wants to argue as if it's a political question, but most of it has nothing to do with our tribes.
   
   
2. Despite the seeming contradiction, we are all in this together and also living in completely different worlds. I know people with hugely different perspectives on the risks of Covid, the right level of safety precautions, the balance point between government rescue plans and tyranny…and they sometimes think the people who disagree with them are on a different planet. But we’re all in this together as we deal with the same inability to find a good employee, supply shortages, gaps in medical care, inflation, etc. We’re all in this together, even if we aren’t all together on any of this.
   
   
3. Have you noticed that Covid is now the quick answer everyone gives for every problem that existed five years ago? The website is down because of Covid, the plumber didn’t show up because of Covid, the check is in the mail but it wasn’t delivered because of Covid. This is only a short-term aberration, though, because soon we’ll blame everything on the supply chain.
   
   
4. I’m always amused when people say they’ve lost a year due to Covid. We spent our time differently, even if we were merely adjusting to all the other people who were spending their time differently, but we all had lives that we dealt with for better or worse. The people who died can’t learn from the experience and lead better lives now, but the rest of us have the opportunity to learn from the year, or years, we’ve spent differently.
   
   
5. It’s true that we’re always living through history, but it’s rare that we get to see it unfold with such force and speed. This is the crisis our great-grandchildren will be reading about when they get hit with a pandemic 100 or 110 or 97 years from today. I know I won’t have to face their scorn, but I’m already embarrassed by how we will look to them.
   
   
6. Speaking of embarrassment, how do we look to the billions of people, billions, who are desperate for our cast-off vaccines as they watch us squabble over the treasure they seek? A little self-awareness would do us some good, although it could be very, very painful.
   
   
7. Is it my imagination or are things getting a bit quieter out there? Maybe it’s the onset of cold weather or the fact that people only have so much energy, but I’m not seeing as many protests, fiery school board meetings and death threats over mask mandates. Maybe it’s a sign things are calming down, or maybe it’s just that everyone is regrouping for 2022 elections.
   
   
8. I wonder about the next time I encounter some relatives and friends who disowned me over my views on vaccination, or the existence of the pandemic. It will undoubtedly be at a funeral, since I can’t imagine being invited to a Thanksgiving dinner or a wedding.
   
   

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