Life lessons from Wordle

In his 2022 year in review, the humorist Dave Barry wrote:

Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”

So, let’s just say I knew better, but I went ahead and flashed my Wordle stats at my hairdresser, who then flashed me her Wordle stats, which put my Wordle stats to shame. Aside from a year-long streak, she solves most of the puzzles in three words.

My genius stylist then revealed something I did not know about Wordle streaks. According to Lisa, if you forget to play one day, maybe you actually go outside and (dare I say it) have fun … your streak is gone. Her streak was over 300 days, and she said it would have been more, but she missed a day when she was on vacation.

All that time, sweating over my streak, naively assuming the outcome was binary. Win or lose! The pressure was on, and I was ready to perform with excellence.

But now I know there’s a loyalty clause. Being good is not good enough. Let’s just call it Workle because it’s damn near the same thing.

I went through the stages of grief but emerged stronger for the experience. It’s like a cord has been cut, and I feel free.

Life is different now that I know you can lose without losing. I wish someone had told me this, oh, I don’t know, 40 years ago?

Anyway, that’s a life lesson that needs to come with me to the golf course, where I lost my temper this week. Not only dropped the f-bomb but also the mf-bomb. My profanity was not directed at anyone else, only my charming self, but still, I’m not proud.

I’ve decided to work harder at staying joyful and appreciating pleasant companionship on the course, as well as the unique challenges of the game. It’s not about the score. I repeat. It’s not about the score.

While I usually don’t play on Fridays, due to all the people “working from home,” I booked a tee time so I could practice being peaceful. Lo and behold, I had a better score. Of course, there’s a connection, but now I need to see if I can stay happy when the golf gods fight back.

So much to learn! Become a little less obsessive. Enjoy the game, whatever is is. Accept you can lose without losing.

Just another lesson at the intersection of Wordle and life.

Not messing with my face

I’ve been thinking about Madonna’s face, and I’m guessing that’s exactly what she wanted. Famous people accustomed to the limelight can’t seem to give it up, so why not just maim yourself to get everyone talking? I don’t believe it has anything to do with ageism. I mean, she doesn’t look younger, only worse, but at least she’s in the headlines again.

Personally, I’m more focused on healthy habits and creature comforts than messing with my aging face. Do I sometimes do a little mirror surgery to see what I’d look like with everything tightened right up? Sure, but that’s not how I want to go down.

For example, I went to the dermatologist yesterday and actually had to put on real clothes. Black leggings, black t-shirt, black denim jacket, white sneakers, turquoise earrings, no makeup and a shock of silver hair. I must admit, I looked in the mirror and thought, damn, I look cool.

As I see it, you can dye your hair and inject your face, and that might create the illusion of youth, but I’m pretty sure they know how old we are. My thinking is that silence is a position of weakness, and being silent erodes confidence over time. I refuse to cower.

Aging should be a liberating experience. Wear what you want, say what you think, live how you like and like how you look – perhaps it is the absence of these things that makes aging such a drag for so many people.

But not us! We’re digging it, right?

So, the latest in retirement creature comforts – linen sheets. I mean, if you can afford this, do it before you die. I bought mine here. I can’t quite describe the comfort – soft but not silky. Not warm, not cool. The fabric feels heavier, but air flows through it. Dale preferred silky cotton, but he’s converted now. There’s no turning back for me.

Another indulgence I started this year is a 90-minute full-body massage every three weeks.  I love it. Yes, even though it does hurt a bit when she digs into those trigger points. The pain kind of scared me at first. I thought she had uncovered some sort of rare muscle-wasting disease, and I almost quit going because I thought, well, better not to know.

But now, I just breathe my way through it and it starts to feel good. Aside from the pure pleasure of having my creaky old body tended to, I do think massage is nothing but good news for your immune system, and it helps with stress, circulation, muscle pain and flexibility.

So, back to aging faces. I love the artist Jesse Dayton, and I am absolutely crazy about this reboot of Brand New Cadillac with Samantha Fish. Check out the drummer!

Old and cool. Inspiration for us all.

A bridge lesson

I was invited by one of the women in my golf group to participate in a series of beginner bridge lessons in her home, and I thought why not? They say this complex card game is especially good for the aging brain. It seems to me anything that might help us dodge dementia is a good thing. I’m retired. I’ve got the time.

Today was my first lesson, and that’s an hour and a half I’ll never get back.

Perhaps I should have known. When I told Dale, he reminded me math was involved. While it’s true I picked journalism as a major because it was about the only degree that didn’t require even the most rudimentary of math skills, I thought, well, it’s a card game. How hard can it be?

Many of you probably know this already, but it’s damned hard. I won’t even go into the complexities I tried to absorb during this first lesson, but it reminded me of high school geometry, when the teacher spent an entire semester saying, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Because that’s what it sounded like to me.

The bridge instructor scheduled an indefinite number of lessons every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Not bad, but not good for the retirement practice I subscribe to called, “The Slow Start.” But you know, staving off dementia, I guess I could move out faster for a good cause. Also, Thursdays at 10 is my preferred time for massages, and one must have priorities.

On the plus side, I wore jeans and my old Lucchese cowboy boots, which I haven’t done in a couple of years. At least I looked cute, and that takes a few brain cells, doesn’t it?

Bridge is interesting, and I can totally see the attraction. I generally like games. I really liked this group of women. If they had a Yahtzee league, I’m all in. I used to play Hearts back in the day, and that didn’t kill me. Backgammon. Scrabble.

But bridge, wow. I’m 67, reasonably intelligent and in excellent health. However, I don’t think I have enough time left to understand this game.

Even without the card counting and all that, there are all kinds of weird things including where you sit and what cards you play – north, south, east and west. What’s so wrong about left and right?

Sometimes your partner will show all their cards, and you play those, too. Like one hand wasn’t enough. And all these little codes to signal your partner how you want to bid. If everyone subscribes to the same convention, why not just say it in plain English? I have five spades!

I didn’t want to disappoint my friends, but I also didn’t want to pretend I’d come back when I knew it was a lost cause. While I acknowledge some stress is good for you, this is the kind of stress that makes me miserable. Rather than drag it out, I just laid it out for them. They were gracious, but now they have to find a replacement, which sucks for them.

When I got home, I told Dale he was right. Numbers gone wild! Crazy stuff! And all my Thursdays eaten up just to learn the basics? I’m pretty sure I would start dreading Thursdays, finding excuses to stay in bed, when in fact it’s a rather pleasant day of the week that has done me no previous harm.

He said, “So, you’re saying it was a bridge too far?”

The man’s still got it. 

All this is good news for those of you who enjoy reading my blog. I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, and I had been thinking, maybe I’ll just quit writing. But that’s looking like a bad strategy now that I know bridge isn’t going to save me.   

I promised the bridge gods I would work harder at writing if they would just leave me alone.

Riding out the storm

The weather here in California is still quite something. We discovered a leaky window that will have to be fixed, but we’re OK. A little sick of each other. Sending messages back and forth through the cat.

I’ve been hunkered down in the house riding out the storm. I finished Sea of Tranquility. I liked it, but sometimes that time travel stuff blows my mind. For the record, I also have trouble understanding how the James Webb Space Telescope sees galaxies billions of years old.  You can explain it to me all day long, but my head is still going to explode.

A good legal thriller is Scott Turow’s Suspect. Pinky, the protagonist, is a funny and smart screw-up trying to make it as a private investigator working for a lawyer. She’s also bisexual, and that’s an interesting aspect of the story.

You kind of have to wonder how a guy creates a character like that, but I guess that’s what writers do. Still, how does he know it’s authentic? Or maybe in fiction, there is no authenticity. Just characters as the writer envisions them. He’s an excellent writer, and I thought the character was great, but I’m assuming someone out there will say he got it wrong.

Anyway, I’ve been on the lookout for a new crime series to read. My original plan was to follow up on the Three Pines TV show and read the Louise Penny books. But they are quite popular right now, so I started Dead Irish, the first book in the Dismas Hardy series by John Lescroart. Dismas is a Vietnam veteran, lawyer and bartender in San Francisco. I love it so far and put the next one on my library reserve list.

The good news is there are 19 of them in all!

On the medical front, I saw the doctor about my blood pressure and took my machine with me because the readings were so odd. My BP was fine on her machine and quite elevated on mine. She tried several times and finally asked me how old it was. I dunno, eight, 10 years?

As it happens, these things are not designed to last that long. Some articles I read said two to three years max. She advised me to get a new one, which I did, and my readings are all now consistent with hers. That was a big sigh of relief.

This is my public service announcement (without guitar). Please see if your blood pressure monitor needs to retire, too.

Finally, I will share that I still dream about work quite a bit, even after five years. This week’s nightly drama was about clothes and dressing appropriately for the office. I can’t remember details from the dream, but there was some level of bullshit about not wearing the right outfit.

No big surprise, really. I did struggle with the corporate “dress for success” model and squandered a lot of money trying to fit in. I didn’t land on a good look for me until later in my career, but it was enough to get me to the finish line.

I ended up keeping just a few great pieces, and I even though I told you years ago I was donating them, I couldn’t quite make myself do it. Still hanging in my closet, waiting for the miracle …which would be like me, dressing up for anything anymore.

Men probably don’t do this, but women seriously check each other out at work. What you wear is more than a corporate uniform. It’s also a peer-to-peer evaluation system, a hierarchy of sorts and one I’m glad to see in the rear view mirror.

Another retirement bonus! Nobody cares what I wear anymore, maybe not even me.  

Cry me an atmospheric river

Gosh, we’ve been hammered here in California by much-needed rain. I’m saying we didn’t need it all at once, but that’s me. Just a kid with a dream.

Dale and I have been hanging around the house, squandering time, because guess what? We’re retired, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Going on my sixth year, I continue to be amazed by how little it takes to fill a day.

The newspaper arrived rolled up in a plastic bag, but it was soaking wet nonetheless. Dale pulled the newspaper out of the bag and actually wrung it out over the sink. Then he put it in the oven, where it dried quickly, although I found it a big crisp.

“Convection roast,” he said.

Inspired by Janice at Retirementally Challenged, this is a gentle reminder that if you should find yourself in the same position, don’t be stupid. While that’s a great resolution overall, in this case, it specifically means DO NOT PUT THE NEWSPAPER IN THE MICROWAVE.

Last night was kind of scary. I mean, a whopper of a storm. Riley, our cat, was under the bed, which is where I would have been if I could fit. Wind scares me. By happenstance, I had been using an old pair of foam earplugs to block out Dale’s occasional snoring, and lately they haven’t been working to my satisfaction.

I was asking Dale about them, and he said you can’t use the same pair over and over. Well, I wish someone had told me that before I wasted quality sleep time. I opened a new pack in the middle of the night and they completely blocked out the sounds of the storm. However, I could still hear Dale snore, which means he’s louder than a Category 3 atmospheric river.

Whilst squandering precious retirement time, I finished watching the Louise Penny series, Three Pines. Those of you who have read the books aren’t too crazy about the show. Those of us who haven’t read them seemed to like the series just fine.

Sometimes a movie or TV show will inspire me to read a particular author. I like to read a series in order, so I figured I’d start with number one and get it from the library.

I love the library and have since I was a little kid. But as an adult, I typically do not expect them to have what I want when I walk in the door. But those old ones are often on the shelves. What works better is to read reviews, make a list and add them to your reserve list. However, this is a delicate art, because you don’t want them popping into your queue all at once.

All that said, I guess everyone is on the Louise Penny kick, because the books were all checked out. I suppose I’ll have to reserve it. Sometimes I’ll buy a new book, but I hate spending money on stuff that’s been out a long time.

I did purchase The Shadow Murders, the latest in the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I liked it a lot, but it’s a cliffhanger. That kind of annoys me, mostly because he doesn’t exactly pop these out on a expedited schedule.

Of course I have nothing to complain about compared to Dale, who slogged through all the Game of Thrones books, only to discover the author never wrote the last one.  

I’ve heard Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is excellent, so I’ve reserved that. The description hit all the right buttons for me: “A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.”

Another book on my reserve list is A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley. California gold rush, prostitutes. Right up my alley.

We also recorded a slew of Twilight Zone episodes, which have been fun to watch. Perhaps that will get me through the walloping winds of the atmospheric river, that for the record, is not quite as loud as Dale.

You can quote me on that

    January marks five years of publishing Retirement Confidential. In honor of this anniversary, I suffered through pages and pages of old posts to cull some of my more cogent thoughts about life after work. I hope you enjoy the recap.

    Thank you for making it all possible. Happy New Year!

    • In large part, retirement is about making it to the finish line and doing whatever you can get away with.
    • Many retirees are probably unemployable. Not that we’re uppity, but our bullshit meters are pegged. Oh, and our inside voice is now our outside voice.
    • While big retirement goals typically require planning, preparation and commitment, in the art of the slack, it’s important to set a low bar for the routines of daily life.
    • I got my first Social Security payment this month. That was fun. While I don’t miss work, I do like to be on the receiving end of money.
    • As a childless couple, we want to spend our principal … just not all at once. I like the idea of “die broke.” However, I would like to avoid being alive and broke.
    • We add layers and layers of accommodations and behaviors to earn a living, and we start to believe that’s who we really are. Retirement is a journey toward freeing ourselves from expectations and accepting we don’t have to be more than we are.
    • One thing I’ve learned in retirement is there’s something to be said for wishful thinking. I have been on both sides of the attitude spectrum, and nothing good ever happened when I thought the glass was half-empty.
    • I woke up the other morning thinking, “I should get a job.” I used to like people. Maybe I could learn to like them again.
    • Retirement can be the opportunity to discover or re-discover who you are when nobody is watching.
    • What if we don’t need to continuously improve ourselves? Here’s a radical thought. What if being content is what it actually means to reach our full potential? What if being alive is our greatest accomplishment?
    • I’ve had weird retirement dreams lately. I’m working at my old job but wondering why there isn’t more money in my bank account. Did they forget to pay me? Then I realize I wasn’t working at all and haven’t had a job in years. I wake up happy.
    • Illness definitely affected my professional timetable. My first bout of cancer woke me up to get serious about work, and my second bout woke me up to get serious about life.
    • In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t accomplished much. I consider making enough money to retire my greatest achievement.
    • Retirement can be an unbelievable opportunity to pursue nothing – and that is everything.
    • I’m not one to document goals, accomplishments or disappointments. If I wanted to do all that, I would be working.
    • I never get sick of retirement. Even when I read the news, and it’s all horrible and depressing, I think, well, at least I get to sleep in.
    • On multiple occasions, my boss said I couldn’t take vacation. I think she just got nervous when the flock wasn’t there. When I retired, I had more than 30 days of vacation paid to me because I never got to use it. Yo, girlfriend, guess who’s on vacation now?
    • In many ways, it would have been easier to keep working. At least you get paid to avoid self-reflection.
    • Once you have enough to get by without a job, time becomes more important than money or stuff.
    • Waking up without an alarm is one of the greatest joys retirement brings. I waited my whole life for this.

    The side effects of aging

    We’re supposed to get a big rain storm starting tonight, so I tried to squeeze in a round of golf today. I violated my first rule, which is never play on the day after Christmas. You know, boys and their toys, testing out the new gear Santa brought them. Fathers with sons home for the holidays.

    A happy Hallmark scene best avoided, in my humble opinion. I prefer slow days during the week with crusty old retirees like me dragging their clubs in worn-out push carts.

    You might laugh at my other rule if you live in a truly cold climate or have been battling the bomb cyclone. I apologize in advance. I know your weather has been devastating.

    If it’s in the 50s here in northern California, I wear three layers on the top and one layer on the bottom. 40s? I add long johns under my pants. It was in the low 40s today, but I skipped the extra layer on the bottom. I forgot I can’t hang in the cold like I used to. But yes, I’m playing golf in the winter.

    I don’t think one more layer would have helped much, but it would have been something. It was so cold. I was shivering and literally couldn’t function. I quit on the 6th hole and actually even ran a little bit to my car. I couldn’t wait to blast the heat. My old lady fingers tingled as they warmed up.

    Poor me, home again, safe and warm, back in my jammies waiting for the rain to start. For dinner, we’re having sandwiches with leftover Christmas roast beef. Yum.

    You may have noticed I comment on the political scene from time to time. I try not to overdo it. But as I think about life, aging and what it’s like to not work anymore, I tell myself it’s critical to stay engaged in important topics of the day. I mean, it would be easy for us to slip away quietly. I do think we become much less visible without a job, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have our say.

    So, today’s political mini-rant is Governor Abbott of Texas sending busloads of immigrants to Washington D.C. I understand we need to reform our immigration policies, but these people are not props. They are human beings, and it’s immoral to shuffle them around like excess inventory at the Amazon warehouse.

    We lived in Texas and have many fond memories, but that guy is messed up. I know, there ain’t no shortage of messed up people in powerful positions. I have never understood the vicious things people do to other people. Or to animals, for that matter.

    I’ve been retired more than five years, and for the first time, I received a holiday e-card from my old office. I don’t know how I got back on the list, but I was pleased to be included. That said, it did stir up some sad memories of a horrible job I had there that changed the whole trajectory of my career.

    In the end, I came out better than good, but the experience left some scars. I’ve worked on forgiveness, and I definitely purged a lot of anger, but I wonder how long it takes to truly get that business out of one’s system?

    Or maybe you don’t.

    It occurred to me, I could begin to frame this old work experience the same way I did after being diagnosed with cancer twice. It was no one’s fault. I was unlucky to get it, but I was very lucky to survive it. I still think about cancer and the way it has changed my life. Not why me, but wow, that was interesting.

    Maybe the best approach for life’s bummer events is: Don’t judge the feelings, just acknowledge them, accept them as part of life. Be grateful for the good stuff. I’m sure you had this figured out, but I’m late to the party.

    All that said, I’m grateful for the opportunity to age, but I’m not nuts about the side effects, physical and emotional. However, I saw a picture of Harrison Ford, who is 80, and it at least made me feel better about looking old. He looks good. Like really good. He just happens to be old.

    That’s kind of what I’m going for.

    And the beep goes on

    I’ve been feeling quite happy lately but not particularly inspired to write or work on my art. I wondered if it’s a message from God that I’m not very good at either one, and I should quit, and from there I started to shut down.

    Thankfully, I remembered my emerging theory that when evaluating the enjoyment factor of life after work, results are overrated. Just let go, she says to herself. In large part, retirement is about making it to the finish line and doing whatever you can get away with.

    While you were busy learning Mandarin or perhaps planning your next trip to Machu Picchu, assuming you can still get in and out of there, I took it upon myself to count the number of beeps I typically encounter in a day. I’m up to 15, but I’m pretty sure I’ve missed a few.

    It’s crazy how devices and appliances have wormed their way into our brains. I wonder if anyone has studied how this affects us. In a way, it’s like being zapped with a tiny dose of electricity every few minutes. That’s got to add up to something horrible, don’t you think?

    My wireless cell phone charger makes a double-beep sound when you hit the elusive sweet spot. The dishwasher beeps when it starts and again when it’s done. The washing machine is special. A beep to turn it on, a beep to select the cycle, yet another for the water temperature and a final beep to start the whole thing. When it’s done, it plays a string of beeps one might call a tune or jingle.

    The Washing Machine Song, not to be confused with the pizza song, which we actually wrote ourselves.

    Pizza, pizza, ya, ya, ya

    Pizza, pizza, ha, ha, ha

    Then there’s Dale’s old watch with an alarm set for 10:22 a.m. It goes off in a flurry of beeps every single day, but he can’t hear it, and neither one of us knows how to turn it off. Good news is I’m up by then, so it’s not really a problem. Not like the smoke alarm battery, which never, ever goes off during business hours.

    There’s more, but you get the idea. I mean it’s nice to have audible alerts, but in evolutionary terms, I’m sure there’s a price to pay.

    So, Christmas is on. We’re not doing a tree this year, probably because I’ve complained bitterly in the past about what a pain in the ass it is. Dale likes a tree, but a man can only take so much. I suggested we try it just this once without, and if he really misses it, I’ll back off forever. I think that’s a fair deal.

    We only get each other one present. A few from the sisters arrived in the mail. I suggested we put them under the coffee table in lieu of the tree, which we know now is on sabbatical. He sort of went for it, but the cat is not digging this whole scene. Everyday, the presents get pushed just a wee bit further out from under the table. It’s actually quite entertaining. If for no other reason, we’ll probably go back to the tree just to keep the cat happy.

    In terms of entertainment, I can recommend a couple of good books and a streaming opportunity. For books, I can’t say enough great things about Andy Weir’s Project Mail Mary. He wrote The Martian, which I also loved.

    Another excellent read was Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad. The story reminded me of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It’s kind of sick and wrong, but I enjoy reading about these complex people who self-destruct in the wilderness.

    Although I’ve never read the Louise Penny books featuring Inspector Gamache, they are on my list. Conveniently, I stumbled upon Three Pines on Amazon Prime. The show is based on her books, and there’s only one season so far, but I like it a lot.

    I used to read a fair amount of science fiction but usually default to crime. After reading Project Hail Mary, I decided to make more of an effort in the sci-fi genre. Already downloaded and ready to go is Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Space adventure featuring a detective! Like it was made for me.

    Warm, soft, extra-gentle yoga for wimps

    While I love exercise, I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Still, I think we all recognize we’ll age better with improved strength, flexibility and balance. I’ve been experimenting with yoga, and this is my hearty endorsement coupled with a warning about lowering one’s expectations.   

    I’m pleased to report after several weeks of chair yoga, my back still functions admirably, and I’m no longer taking Advil at night for sciatic pain in my legs.

    Normal people – that’s you – would do a little stretchy stretchy and accept their good fortune. But then there are retirees like me, who have been athletic and have a hard time adjusting to the physical limitations of an aging body. Sometimes that ego kicks in, and nothing good comes of it.

    As it happens, I was getting my hair cut and mentioned to my stylist I was doing chair yoga. She said I was too young for that, like it’s just for feeble old people who can’t stand up.

    I mean, I know that’s bullshit, but it was enough to make me think, she’s right, I could do more. I could get really good at this if I tried hard enough. I could end up teaching yoga! That’s how my brain works. I always dream big before reality sets in.

    And that’s why I decided to try “gentle yoga” at the fitness club where I swim. I’ll start slowly, not do anything dumb and work my way up to whatever is next – rough, cruel yoga? Bring it on! I had a yoga mat from the Year 1 and rolled it up like a pro. Dale said I looked just like one of the cool girls with my fancy tights and yoga mat in tow.

    As the group gathered outside the workout studio waiting for the other class to end, I chatted up some women and told them it was my first time. One said to grab a spot on the floor, so that’s the first thing I did, except she said not that spot … that’s mine.

    Just to be safe, I set up my station a few mats away. The instructor was a middle-aged woman who didn’t look like gumby athlete of the year, but wow. What she could do with her body. She went at a moderate pace and explained the poses reasonably well, but I found some of it difficult to follow. She also shared modifications that made the pose easier, depending on your capabilities.

    If I didn’t understand what to do or thought even trying it would put my back at risk, I simply didn’t do it. That’s the part about not doing anything dumb. Overall, I liked gentle yoga, but it was freezing cold in there, and even with the mat, that floor was rock hard. As in not comfy. I could kind of see my dream start to fizzle.

    Getting on the floor and doing those stretches took me to the edges of where my body should go. My back is a little sore, and I’m grateful I didn’t push any harder.

    While some soreness is inevitable, I presume, I’m not going to jack up my back in hot pursuit of downward facing dog. This is the part about accepting your limitations. The chair yoga is about stretching, strengthening and balance, and it works for me.

    Now, if they had warm, soft, extra-gentle yoga for wimps, I might reconsider. Until then, I humbly suggest the chair is our friend.

    Making peace personal

    Number 34

    The only prescription medication I take is 10mg of Lisinopril every day for high blood pressure. My doctor looks at me – lean, fit and healthy – and says it must be hereditary. Another reason the gene pool stops here.

    I’m guessing my blood pressure has been elevated since, oh, I don’t know, November 2016? I haven’t been monitoring it at home because I had lymph nodes removed (both sides) during my mastectomy, and I’ve read frequent blood pressure measurements in the arm can increase the risk of lymphedema. However, my oncologist recently said it shouldn’t be a problem, so I’ve been taking my blood pressure at home and keeping a log.

    The numbers have been great for months, but I noticed a spike, possibly around the mid-terms or shortly thereafter. You know. Trump 2024 – that sort of thing. Politics can fire me up, but I’m thinking, geez, I’m even doing yoga now. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

    As I thought this through, I realized I’ve internalized some of the collective anger that has spread like wildfire across the United States. While I have a good life and think, oh, I’m happy and chill, and it’s not like I’m storming the Capitol, when I get in the car and someone tailgates me, I spew a stream of venom that would make a Twitter troll blush.

    I decided enough is enough. Do not allow the vitriol to sink in. Just don’t. I quit cursing at strangers from the privacy of my car, and guess what? My blood pressure is back to normal. Taking the meds, of course, but normal for me.

    So, my latest piece of art. Number 34. Maybe it’s about making peace personal.