I was sitting in a Dallas doctor’s office the other day, reading The Atlantic on my phone since I forgot to bring a book. This was about a week before that venerable magazine — founded in 1857 — made headlines when its editor-in-chief was accidentally put on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, with key members of the administration’s team planning an attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen, including the vice president, CIA director, director of national intelligence and secretary of defense. Elect a clown. Expect a circus.
The Atlantic is now owned by Lauren Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder...
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I first noticed a niggle that a health threat was on the horizon in late February 2020 while on a trip to Fort Worth. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I popped in at a Texas Press Association conference so I could briefly meet with some folks, say hello to longtime colleagues, and enjoy a couple of days in Cowtown. News of a mysterious new virus out of China was beginning to spread. A few folks at the conference mentioned it, wondering how widespread it might become.
By early March, talk of what came to be called COVID-19 was beginning to dominate the news. A high school friend and I met at the CrossFit...
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I find myself talking to our dogs more than humans most days. I’m not sure if this is normal behavior or not. Nor do I exactly care. Truth is, with the exception of my family and a few friends, I prefer conversation with the pups to people. The pups actually pretend to be listening, cocking their heads and looking at me intently as I babble away. People, not so much.
We have two, sometimes three pups, depending on if granddog Teddy is visiting, which he does about half the time. Teddy, a year old, is half Havanese, half Maltese — a Havamalt. He is seriously smart, a problem-solving pup....
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I guess time just makes fools of us all.
— Father John Misty
It is no longer possible for me to deny that there is far more in the rearview mirror than ahead in the windshield. I am determined to spend time wisely. This might be an exercise fraught with failure, as Father John Misty (Joshua Michael Tillman) notes in his Dylanesque song, which you can listen to here. That song, which I love, strikes me as a version of the Yiddish expression: Der Mensch Tracht, Un Gott Lacht, or Man Plans and God Laughs.
When I was younger, rarely did time go by unplanned. I was a project guy, who spent...
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