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  • Wise or Just Really, Really Cynical

    I always thought of myself as a very wise man. I think the wisest I have ever been was when I was between the age of 17 to 19. Just ask my parents. Sadly, it’s been downhill since then.

    Being that I am 45, an outsider might look at me, or really just my age, and ask, “What wisdom have you learned in all of your years?”

    And the only true bit of wisdom that I have, which I can pass on, is that if, on a weekend, you are going to cross the George Washington Bridge back into Manhattan, then you got to do it before 4pm. You can take that to the bank. Rock solid advice that I gained through experience, and has yet to let me down.

    But wisdom can lead to cynicism.

    And I say all of this because of a drug commercial that I saw on tv early this morning, you know with the morning news shows that try to cheer you up. In the commercial, a middle-aged woman, and due to the gray hair, I would say that they are implying that she is closer to 60 than 50, is working at a grocery store. She has a condition of unintentional body movements due to mental health. Luckily, there is a drug for that now.

    Even though I have watched this commercial without giving it much thought, for what seems like a month, something dawned on me today; This ad is implying that a late middle-aged woman, who is a stocker at a local grocery store, is somehow earning enough money from this job to afford health insurance, either through her company or the market place, and the insurance is the type that will cover the cost of this drug. And she is doing all of this while, and I know this to be true because she is using this drug, she is dealing with mental health issues.

    I said all of this to my wife, while following up by asking her, “Am I reading too much into this, or is my cynicism justified?”

    Just so you know, the drugs name is AUSTEDO, and 60 pills will cost you, with a coupon at CVS, $6,810. Without the coupon, it’s $10,706.94. AND just so you also know, the parent company that makes AUSTEDO is Teva Pharmaceuticals, which has been sued for price fixing, and for over prescribing opioids. They have settled a bunch of law suits for hundreds of millions of dollars. They don’t have a stellar track record of late.

    My cynicism is the evidence of my wisdom. Though, I can admit, it does lead me to have a pessimistic view of the world. But, it could be worse. I could be in the marketing department of Teva, trying to push an overpriced, bankrupt educing drug on the world.

  • ODDS and ENDS: FIFA Men’s World Cup, Easter, and Soup

    (Things I think…)

    The Men’s World Cup teams are pretty much locked in now. I know there are three play-off matches left to go, but, on the whole, the World Cup is set. I am glad that Team USA was able to make it in this time around. All they had to do was not lose to Costa Rica by more than six goals, so Team USA lost by two goals. It would have been nice to qualify with a win, but I’ll take what I can get. Also, it’s kind’a cool that all of North America will be represented; Canada, USA and Mexico will all be there. Which is a little bit funny as that Continental Trifecta will be hosting the 2026 Cup, and means they all get automatic bids as the host nations. I will be rooting for Team USA, but will also follow England. And I will keep my eye on Senegal; I got a good feeling about them. The only downside to all of this is that the tournament doesn’t kick off until November. I got eight months to sit on this, and do a grand amount of speculating.

    When my daughter got up this morning, she asked me, how soon till Easter? It’s almost here, and we, the wife and I that is, haven’t hand a single thought about it. We did talk, at the start of the year of getting out of town for that weekend, but I don’t think that’s likely. The kid, on the other hand, is ready for bunnies, and eggs, and going to see farm animals, and flowers, and candy. Lots and lots of candy. In my kid’s mind, I think she believes the year is divided up into periods where she receives candy.

    I like soup now.

  • The Return of the Cold

    The wife has a cold, and is laid up in bed today. She was laid up in bed yesterday, too, so I feel like we are repeating ourselves. This cold came from our child. I hate to be like that, but it’s true. The kid was the carrier monkey, as she had this exact same thing a week ago. The kid had a sore throat on the past Thursday night, so we kept her home from school on the next day. About half way through Friday, she was pretty much back to normal. She was still a little groggy, but the sore throat was gone. Today, my wife doesn’t have the sore throat, but she feels like crap. Furthermore, this leads me to believe that I will be sick next week.

    As annoying as all of this is, this is the way life used to be. The kid would go to school, get a cold, then we all would get it in the house. It’s amazing that once we stopped isolating, and wearing a mask, the old cycle of disease has returned. Good or bad, the rhinovirus cycle was a part of the old normal.

    On a small level, it has been rewarding taking care of my wife and kid through their little colds. It’s always nice to be needed, not that they haven’t made me feel needed. It’s nice to take care of something you love.

    The funny part of all of this, is that I started to remember back when I worked in the very toxic office, how I would look forward to getting sick, so I wouldn’t have to go in to work. When I would get that first weird feeling of being rundown, I would celebrate a little in my mind. Yet again, another sign that I should have quit that job sooner. You live, you learn.

  • Short Story Review: “The Ukraine” by Artem Chapeye

    (The short story “The Ukraine,” by Artem Chapeye and translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins,, appeared in the April 4th, 2022 issue of “The New Yorker.)

    I feel that I am like most Americans, in the sense that I didn’t know a whole lot about Ukraine until about two months ago. I knew that a town in Texas was named after a city Ukraine, that the Crimea was in Ukraine, and that’s where the Charge of the Light Brigade took place. I knew that Chernobyl was in Ukraine, and that the country used to be a part of the Soviet Union. Let’s see, there was also that Trump/Biden impeachment thing that had a Ukraine connection. But, outside of that…

    I also think it is an incorrect belief that one writer can capture the whole spirit of a nation. Steinbeck’s America was different from Kerouac’s, as was Baldwin’s and Twain’s. Each is different, and was still correct. Artem Chapeye’s story, “The Ukraine” is about Ukraine, if you couldn’t put that together, and also about a relationship between the narrator and a woman. The cynical side of me, the judgmental side to be honest, was hesitant to read it because the title alone made it feel like The New Yorker was only publishing this story due to current events. As I started reading, and the narrator spoke of his travels across Ukraine with his girlfriend, I had the bad feeling that the author was going to try and capture all of Ukraine in one piece. And as I stated before, I find these encapsulations an act of folly.

    Like I said, I was being judgmental.

    “The Ukraine” is not an exercise of excessive nationalist propaganda, but a soft, quiet meditation on memories, life, death, acceptance, and travel that bonds people together. (In fact, the story has a great line against public displays of overt patriotism, that I won’t ruin.) Maybe part of the power of this story is the fact that as places and cities of Ukraine are named, in my mind, I can see the images of burnt out buildings, and bomb cratered streets. To hear that these places were once a destination that brought about joy to the couple in the story, created a palatable melancholy for all the things lost. About half way through the piece, it finally dawned on me that the fact the story took place in Ukraine was inconsequential. The act of experiencing places together with someone you love, sharing time, creating memories, these are the actions that make life valuable. I will say that the climax was not a total surprise, as it had been hinted, but it still held the needed weight to conclude the story.

    This was not a revolutionary work. It’s didn’t break new ground in literature, or change the landscape of fiction. No, it wasn’t that. What it was, was authentic, and honest. It pointed out a fault of mine, while also reminding me that this truth still exists, “People are beautiful, even if they don’t realize it.”

  • Gumming Up the Works

    You know what happens in our home when it’s twenty degrees outside? No one wants to get up, myself included. Even the dog didn’t want to get out of my bed. The poor kid-o refused to get out from under her covers, so I had to pick her up outta bed and take her to the couch. Long story short, the kid was late to school. I’m talking maybe ten minutes late. Instead of going in the side door with her class and teacher, we had to go through the main front door, and by the school security guard. I watched the kid hang her head low as she slow walked down to her classroom, and had to open the door, in effect announcing her lateness to the class.

    In the realm of the Universe we live in, this was not a big deal, but to her, I could just feel the defeat and how this twenty-four-hour period will be described as the worst day ever. I might even hear it multiple times today.

    And still, I felt my little heart break for her. Such an innocent state of grace that she lives in where just being late is all the cause one would need for the day to be the worst. This caused me to remember the large and small tragedies that would befall me in elementary school. Missing the bus, or forgetting my lunch, or getting a stain on my shirt when it was picture day. Getting the question wrong, or being accused of liking a girl, when I did actually really like that girl.

    Watching my kid go through these things, does not make me feel good, but somehow confirms that life is really just on repeat. When it comes to how we deal with things, nothing changes from one generation to the next. I try to nurture a different result, but nature keeps gumming up the works.