Banal Hemorrhage

I’ve always associated complaining with old people. One of my parents was a serial complainer and I always wanted to rebel against that. Sometimes you are weird because of what your parents model, sometimes you’re weird because of what you tried to break from. In my case, I obsessively avoid complaining. 'Oh, you messed up my blood draw? No worries I have plenty more where that came from'. It takes a lot for me to get angry at a company, a person or a thing. One ex-girlfriend found this infuriating, my lack of reaction was offensive to her. Yet, there are times… In my small city, for some reason, they’ve decided to repair many of our main roads in the year of our lord 2024. For most of the year, I was chill about it. The detours showed me parts of the city I’ve never seen, and I’m really never in that much of a hurry. But lately, it’s making me snap. Why does it have to be everything, everywhere all at once? Businesses are understandably upset. One such business even started ma

Roxanne and I just came from a great vacation in the south of Germany. When someone comes from visiting a new country, one of the most tactless things they can do is to come up with broad generalizations about an entire group of people. So here we go! BROAD GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE The south German people weren’t warm. They weren’t cold either. They were perfectly neutral. But, when you mention their tattoos, pets or beer, they beam up! The south German people seem to have an above average inclination to have dogs. Dogs were everywhere, we saw a Chihuahua in a cold cave in Austria (30 minutes from Germany so it counts).  The word for cook (Koch) is troublesome. When I awkwardly tried to tell a male server “Compliments to your cook / Komplimente an den Koch ” my wife laughed hysterically. A phrase I learned early on was "Sehr Nett", which means "very nice". Halfway on the trip I realized that this made me sound like Borat. Subsequently

Most times, Rox and I are on the same wavelength. No, not when it comes to the desired level of pulchritude and order; but for most other things. Social battery is one such example. We both get the low battery notification at roughly the same time. Perhaps more importantly, we seem to giggle at the same things; like sequential, synchronized post-dinner-walk farts or the Operatic crescendo of our rapidly increasing old-people noises. I have a Rad wife, not a Trad wife! The little I read about Buddhism focused on the transient property of things. Impermanence is something I have, I believe, a firm grasp on. The moment I adopt a pet, I’m fully aware of the deferred sorrow that comes with it. Nothing lasts, including love. I fully accept this self-evident truth, but I also feel like Rox and I are killing it on the brief blip we are existing together. By the way, if you weren’t expecting images of dead pets and sophomoric Buddhist interpretations of love, why are you reading a humor blog?