Ex Unibus Pluram

Getting along with family can be tough.  Mostly it’s because a family is just randomly thrown together.  Whatever baby pops out is the one you have to keep. The parents are (ideally) the same, but genetics, it turns out, can produce quite a bit of variation.  None of my three siblings have the same hair …

Oh, the Places We (Don’t) Go!

Most of my writing happens over lunch.  Since I work from home, I like to get out and sit somewhere.  Two of the most common places I end up are Panera and McDonald’s.  Both are just down the street, in a massive shopping center, right next to each other.  They share a parking lot. I …

Reflection: What Happens to Bike Thieves at McDonald’s

Read the original: What Happens to Bike Thieves at McDonald's. Witnessing a young kid resisting an inevitable arrest flipped something in me.  It’s easy to think about people and situations in the abstract. When we do, other people take the form of ourselves, only broken (or enhanced, if a hero).  A comparison occurs where the difference …

Reflection: When Everything is Getting Better, Why Hasn’t Anything Changed?

Read the original: When Everything is Better, Why Hasn’t Anything Changed? Since no one bothered to write any comments or challenge my thoughts on tolerance, I guess I am going to have to do it myself.  Putting aside the idea that success is always running away from us, we still have to work toward some goal. …

When Everything is Better, Why Hasn’t Anything Changed?

Success has a weird way of a disappointing us.  You finally get what you hungered for, but the joy doesn’t last or you feel even worse than you did before you got it, like when you eat a brownie and suddenly crave ice cream or else when you have that last hushpuppy only to realize …