Perfect: The Enemy of the Good

(Nobody asked . . . but . . . )

One of my favorite phrases is "Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good."

I see this as a acknowledgement of the complex reality that we live in. We are not alone and we are not able to dictate and control all aspects of the world around us. People are complex and unpredictable and have intricate inner lives that they do or do not share freely. Motivations and beliefs and actions (both our own and those of others) are opaque. 

We see through a glass darkly.

We move through a world of others and they move through that same world. We try to be accountable to each other, but many act as if they don't owe anyone anything.

So many variables. So many uncertainties. 

How can we then expect perfection?

Believers know that we live in a fallen world. Perfection was lost and all we can do now is try to clear our way through the mud and mess that we have. Cane we do it with grace and with compassion? Will  we choose to do it selfishly and with disregard for anyone else?

Perfection is not achievable.

So . . . don't hold up actions in the vain belief for that perfection.

Don't create a utopia that you can't achieve when you can be trying to do something here and now. Knowing that mistakes will occur. But acting with knowledge and in good faith to protect and serve as many people as you can.

There are many enemies in this world.

Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.

George Orwell's "1984"--Chapter One excerpt

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were--in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. . . . 

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. . . . 

The Hate rose to its climax. . . . [Then] the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals: 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer. 

At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-B!...B-B!'--over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' and the second--a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. . . .

[Source: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt]

Quotes for My Time

Passages that caught my eye while reading Erik Larson's The Demon of Unrest--a book describing the political and personal turmoil leading up to the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 (the precursor of the American Civil War.)

"There was a growing fear that maybe South Carolina's best days were behind her. Planters had once constituted the richest class in America, wrote Dennis Hart Mahan, a New York-born, Virginia-raised professor at West Point in a November 1860 letter to a friend. 'But when commerce, manufacturers, the mechanical arts disturbed this condition of things, and amassed wealth that could pretend to more lavish luxury than planting, then came in, I fear, this demon of unrest which has been the utmost sole disturber of the last for years past.' Mahan, whose son Alfred would grow up to become a prominent naval historian, argued that rather than join the rush to modernity, South Carolina--'this arrogant little state'--had grown even more insular." 

"Lincoln's concern lay elsewhere. . . . 'Our adversaries have us more clearly at disadvantage, on the second Wednesday of February, when the votes should be officially counted.' Here he referred to the constitutionally mandated final count and certification of the electoral vote, to be conducted in the House on February 13, 1861, by Buchanan's vice president. Ordinarily this would be the most routine of events, a celebration of the constitution and of peaceful succession, but the tensions of the times raised all manner of concern, especially given the fact that the vice president, the man who would count and certify the electoral votes, was Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, who not only sympathized with the South but had been Lincoln's leading opponent in the presidential election. 'If the two Houses refuse to meet at all, or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be?' Lincoln wrote."

"Even as he said this, however, concern in Washington mounted that the electoral count might be disrupted. That day crowds of irate Southerners had gathered in Washington and converged on the Capitol clamoring to get inside. General Scott, however, was well prepared. Soldiers manned the entrances and demanded to see passes before letting anyone in. Scott had positioned caches of arms through the building. A regiment of troops in plain clothes circulated among the crowd to stop any trouble before it started. The throng outside grew annoyed at being barred from entry and began firing off obscenities like grapeshot. If words would kill, one observer wrote, 'the amount of profanity launched forth against the guards would have completely annihilated them.'"

"Russell understood, however, that the true cause of the conflict, no matter how hard anyone tried to disguise it, was slavery. He called it a 'curse' and likened it to a cancer whose inner damage was masked by the victim's outward appearance of health. he marveled that the South seemed intent on staking its destiny on ground that the rest of the world had abandoned. 'Never,' he wrote, 'did a people enter a war so utterly destitute of any reason for waging it.'"

"Alexis de Tocqueville had observed this [expectation of mastery and command] aspect of the planter class two decades earlier in his Democracy in America and attributed it to slavery. 'The citizens of the Southern states becomes a sort of domestic dictator from infancy,' he wrote. 'The first notion he acquires in life is, that he was born to command, and the first habitat he contracts is that of ruling without resistance. His education tends, then, to give him the character of a haughty and hasty man,--irascible, violent, ardent in his desires, impatient of obstacles but easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.'"

A Comparison

 

Checking In . . . 2024 Style

I was mentally preparing myself to be mad that I've ignored the blog. But when I loaded up the CMS, I see that I did post in early December. It hasn't event been two full months of inactivity! Wonderful!

*pats self on back*

***

ANYWAY . . . my one fan asked me to update WWYG?! and so I will do so. (When you read it, you'll wonder why bother?)

Earlier this morning while doing my morning walk I listened to a podcast that discusses and judges series finale episodes. The show being examined was Mad Men. Was the finale a good one?

Without rewatching/refamiliarizing myself with the show as a whole (which I did watch in real time and did enjoy), I can't form much of an opinion on the finale itself. I don't remember being very polarized with at the time. I'm sure it was of a high quality and well considered--as was almost all of Mad Men itself. (It does goad me to consider making it a rewatch . . . but there are other things that I REALLY SHOULD (have to?) complete first . . .

My point is that listening to Mad Men and the discussion centering around the thesis of the show and the goals of the finale made me think about midlife crises. And it made me wonder if I have had/will have/am having one.

Am I mired in my daily schedule? Do I even want to get out of it? Do  I have malaise? And what would/could I even do otherwise? Best to avoid and not think about it! Don't try to fix what ain't broke! Recognize what you've got and don't get distracted by phantoms of what else!

Okay.

Repress.

***

Jay got some good school news last night! Their application for the half-day school curriculum at Fort Hayes was accepted. And they seemed very happy about it. I hope it will be a good academic fit for them and that it helps them explore the career field that they are right now interested in. There will be scheduling challenges to overcome for next year, but I am confident that those can be figured out. And Jay may have to make some changes by dropping a few after school performance things next year to make this work and make the schedule flow. But if it is what they want to do, then I hope it results in good things.

***

Lastly, I've had a few random thoughts about Hat of Summer as the calendar shifted to a new year. It is still many months until we begin the approach to Memorial Day weekend. But if I can get inspired, maybe I can start making the odd video here and there. Uploading them to Private of course. Don't want to make the voting period drag on for too long. But shooting, editing, and banking would be a good use of time when I've got nothing else happening. (I make it sound like it is such an ordeal. The videos--as you know--are incredibly simple. But I am--as you know--of limited skill.)

And I guess that is it for now.

Better than nothing? That is for you to decide.

COV366D-19--Year Two

 I gave up trying to blog frequently during the pandemic.

I had some moments in the beginning.

And I got some tongue-in-cheek inspiration for last year's Hat of Summer videos.

But it has been 365 days since I started staying home. And today is the start of Year number 2.

Things are very much the same in all of the tedious, superficial ways. I've stayed in my house so much, for so long. But all of the significant things are stable. The job is there. The family is there. We've managed to make our way through it so far. Even though it isn't over.

***

Speaking of doing the same things for a long time . . . I enjoyed Hank Green's Vlogbrother's video from yesterday. In it he responds to John's Tuesday video about "rebranding". And in the process, he also talked about how the art of YouTubery is performance--which indirectly supported John's previous video about what happens "outside the frame" of the video camera.

I encourage you to watch all three videos. It is only about thirteen minutes in total and will make you think more interesting thoughts that I can offer this morning.

[In chronological order]

I hope you are well and staying sane and sharing some hope. We are all still in this together, as we said so many days ago when this started.

May we all come out of it together soon.

COV80D-19

Sorry that I haven't posted in about a week. It's just been a week of nothing interesting in my week. Certainly, there have been lots of interesting things happening in the country this week. And I am grieved by that. And I have been trying to figure out how to work against the racism that so many people are protesting to fix. More on those issues as I discern how to be in support of solutions to make everything better for everyone.

In the good weather these days, the girls have dusted off their softball gloves and been throwing in the backyard. Hannah says that she is interested in trying out for the Seventh-grade team at Walnut Springs next year--assuming such things happen in the future. So this is some good prep work for her--to remind her of what skills she acquired in her brief experience in Fall Ball the last few years.

What else?

We have successfully made two Great British Baking dishes the last few weeks. Hannah hasn't determined what this week's dish will be. But it might end up being another savory item similar to the Giant Sausage Roll that we made yesterday. (We don't want to step too much on Grace's established  sweet territory.)

Since I can't think of anything interesting to say, maybe I'll turn the questioning on you.

What have you done in the last month that you feel is noteworthy? Have you achieved something you never expected to achieve? Have you overcome something that seemed impossible before?

What good things have happened to you? Is there a great memory that you can think of in the month of May that you would like to share?

Do you have something difficult that you want to get off of your chest? Are you willing to share it in a public comment? Maybe someone who reads this can help.

What do you look forward to? What do you dream for in the near future? 

COV73D-19

How is your Memorial Day weekend going along?

Today has been a pretty relaxing day but I'm craving some potato chips right now. (Not that you really needed to know that, but I thought I would let you in on that little secret. And the reason I'm craving chips at all is because I just watched a Bon Appetit YouTube in which Claire (the Gourmet Makes host tried to recreate Pringles). 

Do you watch Bon Appetit? That has been one of the new entertainment additions of mine during the COVID quarantine. Grace watched it a lot and I started watching Gourmet Makes. It's a fun twist on How Its Made and Unwrapped and other food-related shows that I like to watch. And once you start watching one personality, its easy to start watching some others.

So . . . yeah. Maybe I'll eat some potato chips soon.

But, what else is happening?

I went for a walk today and that was nice. After so much rain this past week, it has been nice to see the sun and even feel some warmth. But since the Highlands Pool has announced that it won't be opening to the public this summer, I wonder if I'll be setting up the sprinkler in the yard to help cool off? But if I do that, then I would need to prevent people from playing in the water and violating my quarantine.

Speaking of food . . . Lynda and Hannah are attempting to make an extremely difficult pastry from the Great British Baking Show: religieuse. (see above) 

(If they make it out of the kitchen alive and still loving one another, then good for them. I don't even care how it tastes.) 

***

Two other things:

1. You have tonight and sometime tomorrow--until I decide to shut down the Google form and make my reveal video--to cast your final votes on #OfficialHat2020.  You can vote here.

2, My kids spent the morning making an online personality quiz. It is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender . . . because why not? Click here to take the quiz. They designed the concept. They chose the characters. They wrote the questions. They wrote the copy. I like it and I liked the result that I got. Click here to go and enjoy.

COV65D-19

My posting frequency has declined in the last few weeks, as I'm sure you have noticed.

Just not much to talk about these days. 

As everyone keeps saying "We're all in this together."

So I don't need to explain to you how this is going.

As the great poets once said:

Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb
So much to do, so much to see
So what's wrong with taking the back streets?
You'll never know if you don't go
You'll never shine if you don't glow

What does that mean?

I think you can let yourself decide what that means.

(You know . . . when I decided mentally to do that bit, it sort of made sense. But now that I see it, it really doesn't. And it seems pretty hacky. But oh well, it's content.)

ANDBUTSO, what now?

I've got no ideas.

Maybe something will come to me tomorrow.

COV45D-19

As I believe I've mentioned, Hannah and I are watching Star Wars: Rebels (an animated series on Disney+).

A few weeks back, Lynda was watching the show with us and she asked, while watching a space dogfight between Star Wars fighter ships, what happened to laser bolts that were always being fired from ships but then missed the TIE fighter or the lasers shot from Imperial Star Destroyers that didn't intersect with a trusty X-Wing or Cpt. Syndulla's ship, The Ghost.

At the time, my immediate thought was the laser bolt (blast?) eventually dissipated, even though there was no friction in space to cause a loss of velocity. Because the alternative result gave me concerns.

Think about it.

Without inertia to cause a reduction in speed, things in space will continue moving forward, or at least their direction will change due to an external action--maybe gravity, maybe solar wind, maybe the chance random strike from a micro-meteoroid. But once set in motion, an object in space will keep on moving. I assume this is even more true of laser weapons that are firing light-based weapons. Without any "object" to possibly be inertially altered . . . does that mean that laser bolts that miss its target in space just keep on going and going and going--until a target is actually found?

I dismissed this theoretical experiment.

But THEN . . . weeks later Hannah and I were watching the episodes at the end of season 3.

During the climactic events of those episodes, the Empire's Grand Admiral Thrawn's begins an "orbital bombardment" of Chopper Base. In doing so, he orders the Star Destroyers to begin firing its laser cannons from orbit down to pepper the planetside with impacts. And this made me fear that Lynda had been right all along. I had dismissed her suggestion largely based on some unknown "range" of distance that a fired laser blast could travel. And because of what I have seen from Star Wars battles in the past--and because I didn't want to confront the awful possibilities--I assumed this range was maybe thousands of meters but nothing more.

And then, seeing those self-same lasers pepper a planet's surface from orbit . . . I knew the truth at last.

Do you understand the danger here? 

If the limit of these laser blasts is much farther (perhaps limitless if Newton and Einstein are correct), then the truth is . . . these laser bolts just keep on traveling. If a gunner is not accurate enough to hit its target that blasted bolt just keeps on going, outside the orbit of the planet*, out into the void between planets, and out into wider space. And that means that space travel is truly dangerous--at least if you choose to do it during a time of galactic conflict. Because there are space battles happening in systems across the Star Wars galaxy at any given time. And judging by what I see in the movies, there are PLENTY of missed shots. And so those laser bolts are just mindlessly cruising out into space. One is not such a danger. But hundreds of them? Thousands of them? Crisscrossing every which way? Upon every axis? In all directions? It's an ever-expanding laser cage of creeping destruction!

You could be a peaceful family. Or a neutral trader? Or anyone at all, moving through the hyperlanes of the galaxy, completely unaware that at any moment a stray laser bolt will intersect your ship! You'll at the very least face damage. But you might very likely face your doom! All because the Imperial academy didn't train its Stormtrooper pilots better. Or because the Rebellion will take on any untrained bush pilot who owns his own ship and has a grudge--but precious little in the way of target practice.

*And you might say I"m wrong about this--or that a planet's own particular gravity well is strong enough to prevent misguided blasts from escaping into the outreaches of non-battle space. But then, Star Wars dog fights should, in fact, turn into a game of Angry Birds Star Wars, where you are purposefully bending bolts around orbital paths to catch a ship unawares on the flip side of your shot. (If you've got the time to pull off such a shot, I applaud your skill.)

COV43D-19

I don't have lots of thoughts today, so here is a quick one--a Warhol-esque photo of a banana that I took on the second floor of my work office at least a year ago.

COV40D-19

RANDOM QUARANTINE THOUGHTS ON A TUESDAY

1. . . .

2. I swear I had some thoughts yesterday when my brain served up this "idea". But facing the blank screen, nothing is rising up to the front of my memory. (Can something rise to the front, though? Shouldn't it either be move to the front or rise to the top? And why do I insist on using movement metaphors for the imperfect firing of my neurons?

3. There . . . maybe that will shake something loose?

*** Many, many work-related hours later ***

4. Turns out . . . that didn't really being anything particularly exciting to mind. Which is just as well because I had lots of other things to occupy my mind today with work.

5. One thing that I am thinking about right now as I type this is the ongoing struggle (relative term) to maintain digital schooling for these last weeks of the 2020 academic year. Yesterday, Gov. DeWine announced that schools would not reconvene before the scheduled end of the year. Classes and assignments and education will only proceed through the digital channels that we have started using during the first 38 days of this state quarantine.

6. Grace--God bless her, is doing her own thing and is handling her school independently as she always has. Sarah is in a different category, being a college student and in charge of her own process--unless she wants help? But Hannah is still getting the ropes of Middle School in her routine and needs some more targeted oversight. (But here is where I must say that Hannah--for all the supposed negativity that you might detect from me--is largely doing extremely well in school and when you press her on it, you can tell that she truly cares.) But for all of that, she is still young and if given the choice will choose NOT to set aside hours of her at-home time to attend school in a manner that can appear more theoretical than actual.

So, all of that word salad means that I had some school-related realizations today due to the fact that interim grade reports started coming in on the Powerschool app while I sat and worked throughout the day. And I realized that while I have found a good footing with Hannah on her core classwork in the last few weeks--Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, Science--the elective/special classes have been overlooked by me. For instance, how do you evaluate Physical Education in this online setting? I can get Hannah active and prevent her from being sedentary every day. But what are the criteria? Is there any assignments from the school? I haven't seen them, so that likely means Hannah doesn't have them in the forefront of her mind. The same goes for her "Career Literacy" class. What are the expectations for the rest of this year? Darned if I know.

Band is less confusing than these other two, because her teacher has been sending emails regularly with assignment prompts. And because Hannah takes a private weekly lesson I feel good about her continued learning in that vein. 

But . . . well, we've got almost another scheduled month of this to go before the year officially ends. I am confident that Hannah won't lose ground in any meaningful academic sense. But it is a reminder to me that I need to stay vigilant on the bureaucracy and the management side of the modern educational system to ensure that her paper trail matches up with the expectations.

7. Whatever else, I'll be happy to see this year of schooling officially done in four-ish weeks.

8. 

 

9. Go cast your continuing votes here: https://forms.gle/1jXdy1MxghTbCaEJ7 We officially narrow the field down to only TWO CHOICES in about 10 days.

COV34D-19

I didn't post yesterday because I just didn't have much of interest to write about. (Some may say That's never stopped you before! And I try to ignore those people.) I did briefly consider on Monday night writing yesterday a fictionalized short story of sorts. Most likely it wouldn't have been long enough to even be considered a short story. So it might have been for the best that I never tried it. The idea was a way of expressing some Monday thoughts I had about the cats we are fostering. And I'm not clever enough to pull that off without being annoying and obvious.

(Boy, my writing lately has been full of vague passive aggression hasn't it? I guess I've either got to learn to be more direct or to get over things more quickly.)

As for today? Laptop computer work for several hours ahead of me (as I jot down these thoughts in the morning while drinking coffee and preparing to dive it). Then helping with dinner/cleanup. And then facing the evening hours. We'll probably watch some LOST--or at least some of us will. Last night Grace, Hannah, and I watched "Everybody Hates Hugo." as well as ". . . And Found."

***

In other news, I quickly checked the mid-week results of the #HatofSummer voting and it looks like we are finding some early favorites.

The Martin's BBQ hat is getting some family love. But there is still lots of weeks ahead. So you can cast multiple votes for your favorite any time, all the time. Follow this link to make your voice heard.

***

Finally, a random thought as I sit here later in the day to close out this post and move on to a different phase of the day. What do I dislike the most about life? Probably the need to be partially responsible for the food-related needs of others. If I could just come and go as I needed to and get the food I wanted when I wanted, that would be optimal. But I joined myself with others and the two of us are now responsible for even more people. And so, the daily struggle for food and nourishment looms. Sometimes I wish we just had basic things like the protein cakes in Snowpiercer or stuff like that. But no! Once again capitalism confused and complicates everything. We are prosperous and so variety is built-in and expected!

It's tiresome.

What bothers you most on a reoccurring basis?

COV32D-19

As I alluded to in the previous post . . . yesterday was hard. Holidays can always be hard, because they are filled with rituals and expectations. Under normal circumstances, those rituals can get people tense. When all of that happens in an environment such as this . . . the problems can be worse. 

What it boils down to is that we are all tired of being stuck with each other--with very little chance of release.

It is a natural outcome. And I am as much a part of the problem, to be clear. We all need to spend some time apart now and then. And we have done so. But the world keeps spinning and responsibilities remain. And there are times in life when you just don't want to be stuck with your family. But this is where we are. This all sounds negative. And it is. But I am not blaming anyone. I can only blame myself for responding to the world I'm in. I control me. 

So . . . gotten off chest. Let me (hopefully) learn from this and do my best to move on.

***

Today's office work was frustrating in different ways. I did things, definitely . . . but about half of it were items on my list for today and the other half didn't get started. And the stuff that didn't get started were the longer, more complicated bits. (And that probably contributed somewhat to the fact that they were the last to get tackled.) But tomorrow is another day and I'll get it done.

***

And now I'm watching Phantom Thread with Sarah--as she has to write a movie review of it for some class that she is taking. As the credits start and as I get ready to watch for the second time, I wonder. Is this movie based on a real person? Was it simply an inspiration to tell a story of a driven, demanding artist? If it was simply a story concocted from nothing, then what motivated the idea?

Does anyone know? Does anyone want to fill me in?

And well, I guess that is it for today. As Peter Buck would say, this one is "A little bit of Uh huh. A whole lot of Oh Yeah."

COV31D-19

It's been a stressful day today because not all days are great. But maybe the rest of it will be alright.

I don't have much to say today, except Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate this day. It has been an unusual one. In many ways it has been the most unusual Easter Day of my life. And in some other ways, it is just like every Easter. 

So, since I don't have much to add, I'm going to leave you today with a video of the five cats that we have been fostering for two weeks. The kittens are still only weeks old and extremely tiny. But they are--as you can see--finally becoming more mobile and interesting.

COV19D-19

(Now that the numbers match up do I get a pony?)

Today is a stream-of-consciousness type of blogging day. I'll have the tab open and just drop back in here and there to jot something down. What will it add up to? We'll find out.

Hannah has a school conference call set for 10:10 am. Set my alarm to go see if she can log into the call correctly. Grace's cooked eggs for breakfast is making me want to eat again. I'm feeling tired of sitting here at my dining room table day after day--even though I normally sit at my office desk day after day. Nothing has changed. And definitely . . . nothing has changed.

Ohio schools won't reopen again until AT LEAST May 1. sigh

[Midday update . . .]

Bad news.

I've been working this morning and I can report that I have nothing interesting to add to this post so far. I've gotten up and out of my seat it feels like 25 times in the last thirty minutes and I'm feeling pretty antsy.

But it looks like Sarah is setting up to do another watercolor still life this afternoon, so maybe that will generate some excitement and content interest.

[One hour later . . .]

Where do you position your Task Bar on your PC computer? I've historically always left it on the bottom of the screen, which is the default position. But occasionally--and especially when I'm long term using my smaller laptop screen--I've set it to "auto-hide" so that I have maximum screen real estate. BUT . . . when you do that, then you get the taskbar popping up to alert you of an incoming message. And that removes that bottom area of the screen until you click to acknowledge the alert.

So, I tried moving it to the TOP of the screen. Quickly realized that was no good. Because it competes with the tabs on your browser and becomes even MORE of a problem when you are on a WebEx and all of the screen sharing options and tools are on its own auto-hiding toolbar at the top of the screen as well.

So, then I moved it to the LEFT of the screen, running vertically down. (The Right vertical option is definitely out because that is where all of your scroll bars are sitting for all of your programs and NO THANKS! But on the left, can I be comfortable with "auto-hide"?

Turns out no--for the same reason auto-hide doesn't' work at the bottom default position. The alter pop up is just TOO ANNOYING.

So now I'm going with Left Vertical/Always Visible. Will give vital updates in the coming days.

[Later . . .]

I really am not focused today. It sucks.

COV17D-19

Where the hell did Zoom come from? Why is it now (at least in my small corner of the world--that feels even smaller every day of this experience) the default web platform for online video chatting? As I've said elsewhere, I had not heard of Zoom at all seventeen days ago . . . and now I hear about it on a daily basis.

This feels to me like a meme come to life. And not the goofy GIF-based memes that we have come to communicate in short reactions during these digital times. I mean the original definition of meme: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. Zoom has come to represent online communication in a very rapid way, and I still don't know why it happened.

But I guess I can speculate a bit--with little to no real data or substantial evidence. I guess that our instant reliance upon digital rather than face-to-face communication has put a great many of us on the same plane of communication. And somewhere, someone used Zoom as a reference for how to stay in touch. Maybe it was on Facebook. Maybe it was on the cable news. But someone referenced it and then someone else picked it up and referred to it and others heard and others heard. The meme idea was transmitted to increasingly larger amounts of people (kinda like a virus being transmitted, dontchaknow) . . . and then it someone became a fixed idea that we all understand and the idea becomes a cultural acknowledgment.

What does it mean? Don't know.

Is it important? Not really.

But it is visible. And it is interesting. And I wonder why. And I wonder how. And it gave me something to blog about today, another day in the continuing stream of house-bound days, where every room looks the same and my perspective rarely changes. Where the work sits waiting. And the dishes always need cleaning. Where we are five people who love each other but rub against each other's personalities with very little to spread us apart sometimes. Where the lure of being outside doing yard work looks tempting. A place where the act of ordering food out is a great joy that is also simultaneously a burden of dish transfer, hand sanitizing, careful trash disposal . . . and with all of that, something of an act of charity.

It is the place where we are all collectively experiencing this. And yet we are all isolated as well. We're in this together but trapped in our own heads. We are part of a whole and still desperately want to be individuals. We are one in the crowd but also so badly want space. Where no one can tell you what you are experiencing but also we know what it is like. And where we can't pretend that our struggles are comparable to the true problems of others.

How does this relate to understanding Zoom? It doesn't. Sorry.

COV16D-19

How is your weekend going so far today?

Does it feel different having the weekend when you have spent all week in the same place as well?

I'm trying my best to keep them separate.

One way that I did that today was helping Lynda in the backyard, clearing out old sticks and dead stuff and the detritus of leaves . . . clearing out the dead of Winter and providing space for the new growth of Spring. It felt good to be outside and doing something other than sitting and staring at a screen (and I'm NOT someone who loves yard work). I had planned on mowing the lawn but ended up not doing that because we are getting more rain today and I didn't get the mower started up in time to make that happen. And we had all the sticks and junk to get out of the way anyhow.

Lynda put down some weed retardant and we also spread some crabgrass killer and lawn food before the rain came as well--well, before we got hungry for lunch and at the point where we were getting tired and ready to go inside for a bit. It didn't actually start raining until an hour or two after we stopped working. But even so it was good to be outside and stretch our muscles a bit.

What else is happening today? I'm trying to work on some Dungeons & Dragons stuff--both for myself in prep for a game coming up in April and for a simple campaign that I started for Hannah and her friends several weeks back. If I can get things set up on Roll20, then maybe we can continue the game tomorrow afternoon (online of course).

Other than that, I'm trying to enjoy some relaxation today. Stuck indoor for health and for weather reasons. But at least I'm doing the things I want to do right now--including this brief blog continuation.

I hope you are setting up for a good, diverting weekend. Talk again soon.

COV13D-19

(Thank you to everyone who responded to Tuesday morning's post and has taken the time to vote on my #OfficialHat2020. I'll give it a few more days before I give an update on how the voting is going so far.)

Because I don't have any #HatofSummer items to specifically write about today I sat down without a clear idea of what I needed to write about. The only thing that comes to mind right now is the question What do you miss the most?

We are all experiencing severe disruptions in our daily routine. Even for those of you who are allowed to leave their house to perform essential jobs, the environment that you are entering into and the world you are traveling through must seem different and must provide you with some feeling of loss. I can only presume this because I've only left the house (not counting being in the yard or on the porch) twice in the last two weeks. But everything I am reading suggests that the world is very different. So, I presume that you are definitely missing things.

I am missing the variety of each day. (And my days were not that varied to begin with. Almost every working day consisted of me getting up early, making sure the kids were awake, getting ready for work, driving to the office and working, coming home for dinner, possibly participating in outside volunteer activities, relaxing a while, going to bed. Rinse and repeat with little meaningful variation for about two decades.

This stability is something that I definitely have prized. And I celebrate my life's consistency and the security of it. But even in its sameness, there were differences. The workday was always different. It may sound stupid, but lunch was always a complex diversion. And my life was always enlivened by what my kids were doing and what I could help them do in support roles.

All of that has been narrowed down to a very limited set of daily options. My job continues with little variation except for location. But daily food choices are not the same. And the kids are prevented from getting out in the world--so that eliminates that source of interaction for me as well.

I think that is why I enjoyed making last week's #HatofSummer videos--because it gave my brain a new thing to think about and a new perspective to consider. And that is why I enjoyed redecorating the basement--turning that old same hodgepodge of a room into something new and more intentional. These are all good things, so I need to find more of them. For example, participating in my church's various Live Streams are bittersweet, but they are enjoyable for putting a new twist on a familiar experience.

ANYWAY--what do you miss? Leave a comment describing what you want back. (And if you can explain why that elephant picture came up when I searched for "what do you miss?" I'd love to hear that as well. What is your best theory on that mystery?

50 Greatest Celebrities of All Time

As a way to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Why Won't You Grow, I'm going back to a bread and butter topic of this blog that I used to write about lots and lots of time in the past.

Celebrity and fame.

Using work already started by The Ringer Web site, I've got "a" list of the greatest celebrities of All Time provided below, along with a podcast focused on this debate. If you've got the time and interest, I suggest you listen.

But if you want to skip that, I've reproduced their list below--ranked from No. 1 to No. 50. And I'll try to provide my own reaction to each choice . . . if I recognize them.

Happy reading!



1. Oprah
I guess I'm not surprised by this. Everyone is always saying that Oprah is successful and rich and influential and famous and stuff. If all of that doesn't add up to you being the best celebrity, what is it all for?

2. Beyoncé
I guess I'm not surprised by this either? But there is a part of me that chalks this up to recency bias. And maybe that part of me just doesn't care that much about her music?

3. Muhammad Ali
My children's generation will have no connection to Muhammad Ali whatsoever. And I'm sure that when they are in charge, he would never get ranked in the top twenty, and absolutely never within the top 5. I have no direct connection to Ali personally. But I know enough to know what a pivotal cultural role he played at a tumultuous time.

4. Princess Diana
Come on. I reject this. But even so, I can't deny she matches up with the notion of "celebrity" which is being famous for being famous.

5. Tom Cruise
If the Top Gun: Maverick trailer had not come out two weeks ago, would Cruise's ranking have slipped further down the top 10?

6. Madonna
This is the opposite of recency bias, I guess? What has Madonna done in the last twenty years that justified such a high ranking? Or am I simply discounting how BIG she was in the 1980s? But then . . . what about Michael Jackson? He was definitely as influential as Madonna--as well as being controversial. But maybe it is the nature of the controversy that priviledged Madonna?

7. David Bowie

8. Rihanna
I don't get it.

9. John Lennon
I do get it.

10. Jesus Christ
I see what you did there. And I cannot fathom that Rihanna is ranked higher than Jesus H. Christ!

11. Marilyn Monroe
Perhaps the embodiment of the modern media celebrity?

12. George Clooney
It is so much harder to be a celebrity if you aren't i.) handsome/good looking and ii.) charming. Take those two things away from George Clooney and what is he? Mark Ruffalo?

13. Cher
Okay. Cher has been famous for a long time.

14. Brad Pitt
See George Clooney, but subtract a significant amount of the charming part and bump up his acting skill level.

15. Leonardo DiCaprio
What makes him famous? "Titanic"? His man-about-town status?

16. Jack Nicholson
True fact about me. I always have to mentally pause and think Jack Nicholson . . . the actor? Or Jack Nicklaus . . . the golfer? Nicholson is definitely the bigger celebrity of the two--thanks to Nicholson's own personal and professional choices, for sure. But don't sleep on Nicklaus. He's been a damn good, historically great sports figure for all of his adult life.

17. Prince
No way am I okay with Prince being so much lower than Rihanna here.

18. Arnold Schwarzenegger
It's naht a  misprint! (And Stallone must be really angry about this.)

19. Lady Gaga
If you are willing to wear a meat dress in public, you get inside the top 20, I guess.

20. Elizabeth Taylor
What is the contemporary equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor? My mind immediately went to Anne Hathaway. What say you?

21. Jennifer Lopez
Too bad it wasn't made of meat. (If you're reading this on mobile, go to the Web version and click the link.)

22. Joan of Arc

23. Michael Jordan
Being the unquestioned best at the top-level achievement of your profession is not--apparently--as significant as being famous and media-worthy. Skill does not equate to fame.

24. Bruce Lee
At the risk of offending people, this feels a bit like tokenism and also . . . if "Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood" wasn't just released?

25. Ariana Grande
The highest-ranking Disney Channel kid? Or Nickelodeon kid? Promise you that the Ringer staffers who made up a lot of this list have an average age of 25.

26. Will Smith
Big Willy Style can't be more historically inspirational than being guided by voices, right Joan? And it helps to be a martyr. If Joan had avoided being burned at the stake, she would have been eventually penalized for the historical equivalent of "Wild Wild West." (Never outlive your fame, I guess.)

27. Napoleon Bonaparte
I know at least one person that is going to be salty about this number.

28. Aretha Franklin
Let me be the millionth person to make the joke that Aretha ain't getting enough R.E.S.P.E.C.T. on this list.

29. Kanye West

30. Elvis
Southern tokenism

31. Paul Newman
Deserves to outrank Ariana Grande on the basis of "Cool Hand Luke" alone. PLUS his post acting charity work. AND for the fact that he may have the only good Hollywood marriage in recorded history.

32. Drake
Canadian tokenism? And if he'd been a child actor on an American network . . . what then?

33. Tom Hanks
Probably ranks lower than he should because he is also hit by the Michael Jordan issue (fame trumping actual skill). But maybe also Hanks benefitted from having incredibly good timing? He was in the biggest, most influential movies at a very specific and intense time in Hollywood history. Is he that skilled of an actor is you are being brutally honest? Rember that Hollywood success is driven a lot of networking and timing--and if the timing isn't right the networking won't work at all.

34. Nicolas Cage
See? Based on a pure evaluation of fame (but not acting skill, mind you), I think that Cage edges out Hanks. Cage is just willing to play the celebrity bizarre card more than Hanks ever has--or will.

35. Michelle Obama
This is just a straight-up insult to First Ladies. Michelle Obama has tried to do more to help people with her recognition and her notoriety than Nick Cage EVER. Stop it.

36. James Dean
Your grandfather's celebrity of choice. But why not John Wayne? (Left Coast bias, Ringer staff?)

37. David Beckham

38. Meryl Streep
Again, it's pure Jordan Rules that ended up pushing Streep below David freakin' Beckham here. And truthfully she'd probably be ranked even lower if not for her recent run as the Academy Awards audience meme lord.

39. Jane Fonda
Barbarella gets no love. And has America already forgotten that she taught us how to aerobicize?

40. Frederick Douglass
Wow. Unexpected and insulting simultaneously.

41.Shaquille O’Neal
Well, at least the great abolitionist reformer and historical influencer outranked the Diesel Shaq Daddy.

42. Michael J. Fox
He did more for puffy vests than anyone!

43. Mariah Carey
Go peddle your vocal flourishes somewhere else.

44. Dwayne Johnson
This low ranking will only propel him to more insane bicep dimensions. You've all made a terrible mistake.

45. Diplo
Definitely, Lego is better.

46. Sophie Turner
Without Instagram, she would be nowhere on this list.

47. Joan Didion
I wonder how she feels about being ranked below her son Diplo?

48. Cara Delevingne
I cannot begin to explain this position for Cara. Is being a former friend of Taylor Swift + getting a John Green bump matter THAT much?

49. Guy Fieri

via GIPHY

50. Jamie Foxx
???