2021. It offered such promise. Even if we all knew it could never live-up to our expectations, it had to be better than 2020, right? Right. In many ways it was worse and that too may be attributed to unreasonable expectations. To me at least, much of what we faced seemed to be payback of sorts from 2020. You can’t shut the world down under the premise of saving us all from a global pandemic and not expect some form of retribution. I’m not going to regurgitate what we experienced; there are enough sources and pundits that seem to spend every waking moment never allowing us to forget, or ignore their opinion. If my attention-span hadn’t become short enough already, my self-defence mechanism that tunes out media “Shit” went into hyperdrive. This may be helpful for my sanity, but I realize now I was filtering out events that might me important. Acknowledging this caused me to purposely revisit certain topics to assure myself I didn’t miss something that was legitimately important. Case in point; University Gardens Neighborhood Watch Committee. Until 2016, I had lived in the suburbs most of my adult life. I voted in every election, but was never compelled to get engaged in community affairs. I was busy. This didn’t change when we moved downtown. Why the need? Everything was fine in my book. Or was it? Becoming a realtor was the first baby step of enlightenment. “Get engaged in your market” was the message from my broker. Ok. To that end, the second step was taking a morning walk. It was exciting stumbling into secret neighborhoods that were off the beaten path. Done. The next step was finding sources to stay up to date on the housing market in my neighborhood. The time investment wasn’t much and in return, I could show a sense of engagement to potential clients. Great, done and done. This was a feel-good activity. A win-win without a downside. This became true but for an entirely different reason. Arriving home one evening, after grabbing the mail, I was scanning the Amazon boxes in our communal mailroom and noticed a stack of poorly printed flyers. It was legible-barely, but it looked interesting. I picked one up. Days later, while working in my home office I remembered the flyer and fingered through the stack of mail. It was from a group calling themselves the U Neighborhood Committee. Upon further inspection I could see it was referring to a proposed 12-story building a block away. It had my attention. The memo continued saying it was student housing for 800+ students and parking for perhaps 220. The map showed the homes and a church to be sacrificed for this build. The “Win” ( in win-win) for me is that now I know about it and can voice my opinion in real time instead of after the fact. I have never considered myself an activist (if that is what this is…) but have gained a sense of community that feels pretty good. Caveat. My neighbor, friend and HOA President had questions about this and asked for me to stop by (It was also to discuss turntables and recent vinyl acquisitions, by I digress…). His question/concern was the validity of my sources. Was it a husband/wife pair of “Chicken littles” stirring people up without cause or accurate information? So often, we embrace what we want to hear, and shut out any opposing opinion, so he wanted reassurance that the information I had began offering the other residents of our building was accurate and unbiased. I appreciated the question and calmly assured him I had actually attended both city council and residential meetings so I felt confident with the accuracy of my statements. He felt better and so did I. Rather than feeding into rhetoric and hysteria, I had attended meetings that provided dialogue from varied sides of the discussion and was able to offer the facts as they were presented. This is starting to look like a civilized democracy. Cross your fingers

Resolutions. It is a new year right?

Resolutions, or even the contemplation of them give me grief. Every year I go through this and the older I get, the moodier I become. Why? Here is my opinion. As a culture, at the conclusion of a year we reflect back on the soon to be departed year. There is a measure of celebration for sure as there should be. Revel in the accomplishments and be glad the bad parts (with the exception of the damn pandemic of course) are behind us. Look forward. This is sometimes followed closely with a tinge of regret and a spark of resolve for improvement. These feeling can be amplified greatly by the amount of alcohol consumed the previous night. For me, the more painful the hangover, the more religious I became. My goals were generally similar in nature and directed more towards improving my income and/or a materialistic expectations rather than personal improvement like exercise or quitting any number of bad habits, although the severity of the hangover may affect my commitment to turn a new leaf. With age came a certain humility and a realization of what you can reasonably hope to accomplish. It also ( at least in my case) came with the difficult fact that the new year resolutions have changed places. Making money and acquiring stuff is still there but it has been forced into a number two position, being replaced rapidly by an increased focus on health. Whether it is diet, exercise or just overall well-being, putting it off or delaying the inevitable for another day is stupid—and dangerous. When you’re 40 and promising to lose weight and eat better, it is a nice idea…that you may or may not get around to. Then you turn 50 and say the same thing, only out loud this time! You may actually join a gym and buy a new pair of sneakers, but by February you are busy again. You promise to do better… Turning 67 is humbling. Health is “Ok”, but little things are sneaking up on you. My doctor recommended I donate blood before receiving my testosterone so I research my options. The nearest blood donation facilities are close to the homeless shelters which gives me pause, so I call Red Cross for an appointment. Easy. After answering their questions, I get a prick to check my blood. “It’s out of range, we can’t except it” the tech says. After talking to a doctor about it, it is recommended I get a blood draw for analysis. As I write this, I wait for the results. I am also waiting to hear back on my request for an appointment with a neurologist. I did get as far as filling out an online questionnaire, so I’m optimistic while I wait for that response too. My point is I cannot keep delaying-or avoiding, taking better care of myself. I do not want to be an invalid and a burden on my wife and/or kids while I mutter about “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. So back to New Years resolutions, and in my case, birthdays. Birthdays, or so I’m told, is another time of the calendar that a person reflects back. Maybe the feelings are the same or similar at least to how a person reflects back on New Years Eve. I don’t know about others, but for me having a birthday on January 1st does present some emotional obstacles which seem to grow more acute every year. For what it’s worth, part of my angst is due to how fabulous the buildup to “Happy New Years” was. The younger I was, the more immortal I felt. I don’t recall ever buying a drink because it was my birthday (or close enough since it was ‘Eve) and entire groups, many unknown to me, would wish me a Happy Birthday at the stroke of midnight making me a mini-celebrity for the moment. The actual day is still awesome, maybe better than when I was younger, because my family always gathers together for Stone Crab, and I don’t suffer through a hangover. Now if I could just get past over-thinking the supposed significance of the day I would be thrilled!

Posts gone unfinished.

I was surprised by how many posts I have in Drafts that have gone unpublished. 21. Some are several paragraphs while others are 500 or more words. Many are too cute or trying too hard to be clever. One was nothing more than needing a space to rant. With several of them, as hard as I tried, the right words never came. Others took on a life of their own and headed in a totally different and unintended direction to what I initially intended. I appreciate that this is my platform and I can say anything I want, but I don’t want to disappoint the three people that will actually will read this.