I mean, Beaker and Miss Piggy make the song.
Month: December 2025
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Doing Stuff, Out of Time
Thought that I would have more time, but I ran outta time.
Now I have to run off to Brooklyn. Volunteering, helping with some puppets. Been looking forward to it.
Time management is a problem of mine.
Or…
I watched an episode of Supernatural with the wife, and lost track of time.
Either way, I’m off.
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Christmas Time’s Running Out
Wasn’t Thanksgiving just last week? At least that’s what it feels like to me.
You know what, it also feels like Christmas is about to be here, and I’m not ready!!!
See all the exclamation points I used; that’s how you know I’m serious.
Decorations went up last week, and we have started our shopping, but I can’t shake the feeling that I am running behind. I’m very anxious this year, and not sure why.
There are many people out there that keep telling that the world is about to come to an end, or the ending is in process, or that things are changing and will never go back to the way they were.
That could be part of it.
But, I feel like there is this clock running, and that I can’t catch up to it. No matter what I do, I fall further and further behind.
I want to have to Christmas joy and spirit in my life. I should be generating this, creating it for my family.
But I feel like I am just hanging on this year. It might be a brave face, but I will face it, and put forth good cheer, and love toward my fellow man.
Still…
I feel off.
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ODDS and ENDS: It’s Cold, Life with an Oxford Shirt, and Yellow Cake
(Tin Roof! Rusted!)
It’s winter now. That was fast. Seems like last week, it was still Autumn around here. And I don’t just mean because it was Thanksgiving back on last Thursday. No, there were still colored leaves on trees. Then, this morning, it was 21 out, and all the leaves were gone. Just bare trees, and cold winds.
My mother used to always buy me blue Oxford Cloth Button Down shirts growing up. I hated the shirt style. It seemed too formal for a kid to wear, and if you did have one on and went to school, the other kids would make fun of you – call you a nerd. Though I always had one in my closet, just in case when I need to wear a tie. When I was in college, and hated doing laundry, I started wearing the Oxford shirts again, and on some level, it felt comfortable this time around. I am sure it had everything to do with no one calling me a nerd. I kept Oxfords in the rotation when I started working professionally, as they looked smart with a tie, but also not too formal, like I wasn’t trying to dress up. Now, it’s what I want to be in all the time. Not sure what that says about me.
Sometimes I just want a box-mix yellow cake with chocolate icing for desert. I know that yellow cake doesn’t really have a unique flavor – I think it’s vanilla, right? But right now, I really want to have that lite, spongy sheet pan of a cake. And the icing as well. That cream cheese icing with coco powder. Nothing special, or ground breaking, just solid great tasting icing that isn’t too sweet, and with a slight hint of biter chocolate. That cake feels like the best comfort food I could have right now. Maybe ice cream would be more comforting, but it’s too cold for that. No, I want right out of the over yellow cake.
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Short Story Review: “Safety” by Joan Silber
(The short story “Safety” by Joan Silber appeared in the December 8th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)
Illustration by Chris W. Kim
You know, every “time” is a “historic time” but some are more historic than others. I will agree that we are in the middle of one of those historic times, and if I am lucky enough to have grandkids, then I imagine they will ask me “WTF was everyone thinking, grandpa?” The good news is that over the past three or four months, I have started to see works of art in different media start to tackle the events of deportation, disappearing, and what effect these policies will have on America. I am going to throw Joan Silber’s “Safety” in with all of these works, though uneven, I applaud what this story attempted.
Overly Simplified Synopsis: Two girls become friends growing up in New York, one Muslim the other Jewish, and both decedents of people who immigrated to the US to escape dictators. They go their separate ways in life and reconnect in New York, where the Muslim friend now has a child and a partner who is a comedian. When the comedian is on his way home from a gig, he is disappeared by the Administration.
There is an ease to this story, and a simple directness to the writing. What it does well is create a picture of the modern melting pot that America is – people of different backgrounds are still coming here, and their children are still connecting with people that are different from them, and finding a commonality in our shared humanity. Silber does well in creating a context for the Muslim family regarding escaping the Nazis, being forced to migrate by Stalin to Uzbekistan, and the trauma of family separation.
Yet, through it all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this story was pulling its punches. There is a huge amount of drama here that is being sieved through a philosophical existential filter, but it never seems to amount to an emotional climax. For example, think of how these families lives’ have been influenced by authoritarians – from being pushed out of home nations, to being pushed together in America – and how these families have made new lives for themselves. And when a new Authoritarian pressure is applied, the characters seem more resigned, as if ordained to this fate, rather than free to exist.
Ultimately, I appreciated this story, and Silber, for taking a swing at an issue that needs to be swung at. “Safety” uncomfortably reminds us that history does repeat itself. That immigration, deportation, and citizenship (both in its legal and the social definition) needs to be discussed and debated again, so we can finally find a way to break this awful cycle.
