2018
Lengthy, stream-of-conscious (so, deal with it, Ben!)
My therapist likes to use the airplane oxygen mask analogy: “Make sure you put yours on before you assist anyone else”. You can’t assist them if you’re passed out or, dead. As someone (and, not tooting my own horn) who tends to make sure everyone else in my life is OK before I check in on myself, I’ve tried to take that to heart.
To call 2018 a giant shit show is an understatement; and, it seems to have been for so many of us. I’ve been saying 2018 started 2 years ago. I equate it to when I first saw my favorite college sports team get placed on probation and have the amount of scholarships it could offer talented players cut down. You didn’t see the team do bad right away. It took 2 years to see the impact. The last 2 years in the current political climate have been horrendous, but, have been only getting worse as we see the effects continue and, gain momentum.
A sad passing…
I am not posting this to be about “me” or, to elicit any pity. I just feel compelled to offer tribute to a person who had meant a lot to me in my life. There are people who come and go in your life and, you never know where paths will take you. I, for one never realized (as, you don’t enter a marriage thinking about it) how getting divorced means separating from your spouse’s family, as well. My ex-wife, Amy and I have since been on good terms and, her family has always treated me well and held a special place in my heart.
My former father-in-law passed away, suddenly last night. (I have yet to learn the cause of death.) Amy wanted to let me know (he is the person who got me my job with Social Security and, it’s possible they will send an in-office email about his passing as he’d worked there, in the Baltimore area for 40ish years) as she wanted me to hear it from her first.
Dennis Plitt was an amazing an sweet man who always treated me like a son. He’d talk about sports to me that I knew he wasn’t nearly as into as a way to bond. He checked up on Amy’s well-being every day and, I found that as soon as he’d call when she and I started living together and I’d say she’s fine, I felt not only “in” with her family but, a trust with Dennis.
Even after Amy and I separated and ultimately divorced I could email him through work email to ask about impending furloughs and shut-downs and he was as incredibly friendly and caring as he’d always been. He’d end each email with, “we miss you”.
Goodbye, Dennis, you will be missed!
The comedy stuff…
There’s a scene in the film “Four Rooms” where Quinten Tarantino goes on one of his pseudo-fourth-wall-breaking, self-indulgent diatribes about some precious opinion he has, this time about Jerry Lewis. This was 20 years ago about 20 years ago and, now Jerry Lewis has just passed away. Who knows how the news will present this now that Lewis died, mostly out of the spotlight at 91. Tarantino goes on about how Lewis gets a bad wrap from the media but, when he dies everyone will talk about what a legend he was in true hypocrisy. How about this? He was a very well-known legend. However, and, in the spirit of staying true to form, while I don’t necessarily think it’s great to say a lot of negative things right when someone dies, he was a sexist. His comedy was not my cup of tea and, I was never a huge fan. His telethon was a great cause, but, did not take away from the demeaning view of female comics he had. Best to his family. That is all.