“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little everyday. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.’” – Nonagenerian Richard Meyers
Mom in the drug store Called out to her son: “Brooklyn!” Am I getting old?
| Email Edition | ContactEach moment is different. Here are some of mine.
“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little everyday. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.’” – Nonagenerian Richard Meyers
(For Leah Garchik’s back-page-of-the-San Francisco Chronicle feature.)
Ms. Garchik,
I was walking on the west side of Sonoma Plaza this morning when I passed a middle-aged touristy couple, just as the man was saying to his female companion, “Someday, she’ll know what beer is.” His words are a mystery to me, and I hope amusing to your readers.
Be well,
Neal
Once you turn 30 (or thereabouts), no one calls you an “old soul.”
Never thought I’d hear Safeway’s in-house music channel play “London Calling” this morning. But I sang along with it anyway.
From Josee Wolff, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary:
“…The pessimist observes a situation, generalizes about the bad aspects, and interprets them as a permanent and constant feature. In contrast, the optimist observes the same situation and sees the bad aspects, but particularizes them and interprets them as a temporary obstacle that can be overcome.”
Here is what I said to Mayor Sadiq Khan via his website. You may want to write your own.
Dear Sir,
Please accept my humble condolences and healing prayers for those injured and killed in the recent terror attack; I hope this finds you otherwise well. I realize you are very busy, but I just wanted to take a moment to apologize for the actions of “our” president. Not all of us voted for him; not all of us share his boorish opinions or worldview. Many of my countrymen/women are otherwise fine people, and many of them are trying their hardest to mitigate the damage he is doing to our country and the world. I can only hope you don’t judge us all by the actions of one man, even if he claims to be our elected representative.
Be well, and thank you for your time,
Neal Ross Attinson
I DON’T USUALLY GET POLITICAL. But this is no time for silence.
I did not vote for the current President. I find him arrogant, cruel and stupid. His policies, appointments, and disdainful comments about our institutions and values are fascistic and frightening to me.
Fortunately, some people are fighting back:
1. WTF Just Happened Today? Stay informed with this daily update of things bad (and good) related to the reigning regime.
2. Indivisible: A Practical Guide: A strategy (and tactics) for organizing the Resistance. (Takeaway: Be like the Tea Party, only progressive.)
3. Bend the Arc | A Jewish Partnership for Justice: A small but doughty band of Jews and allies who have Seen This Before.
4 Find your Senator / Find your Representative: This is where some of the real power lies. Make your voice heard in the Senate and House. Daily. (According to Indivisible, phone calls and office visits are the best way to do that.)
5. https://twitter.com/RoguePOTUSStaff (you’ll need a Twitter account): Dispatches purporting to be from a rogue official on the President’s staff. Enlightening if true.
And remember: take care of yourself and don’t pass along rumors!
IT FEELS GOOD to write again.
It has been just over six years since I last added to this blog (which once boasted a readership of about thirty people, each one beloved, with additional spikes when I linked to something else and readers traced the link) and am finally feeling confident again about writing. The hiatus was mostly caused by a long-term and largely unameliorated depression (and yes, I’m still disabled); but thank G?d, Wellbutrin, Ann and Torah, I seem to have found my way back. During that time, it was difficult for me to focus on anything beyond a sentence — yes, it was that bad — but I somehow always knew I’d take up The Metaphorager again. Or so I hoped, anyway.
The tagline for this blog is “All That’s News To Me, I Print.” It used to be “A Journal of Experiential Holiness and Snack Bar,” which is perhaps closer to the point (there is a lot of Jewish content here, after all), but there’s a raft of other stuff contained in its (so far) 623 posts: recipes, blog critiques, book reviews, cultural commentary, short stories, et al. I had fun writing it, and hope you had/have fun reading it.
I’m not going to predict what I’m going to post here; I posted the last post because it’s the first writing I have done in six years and wanted to share it with a wider variety of people than receive my synagogue’s newsletter (for which I wrote it); I have seen too many people organize events which they called the “First Annual Shindig” and never held another.
All I can say is that it feels good to write again. We’ll see what develops from here.
Slate-thin clouds cover
shoulders that lately knew sun.
Make up your mind, God.
“WHAT CAN I DO, RIGHT now, to better myself?”
AS SOUND IS SLOWLY-VIBRATING light, ambition is slowly-vibrating desperation.
WHEN IN DOUBT, SHOOT FROM the heart.
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