Have I somehow become approachable? — Yesterday I was gliding my way elegantly across the pool at my fitness club, my supple grace and lean swimmer’s body attracting the admiration of less blessed gymgoers. The pool is set up with three lanes, separated by two swim ropes, or bobbity-things as I call them. Typically there’s one…

I don’t want to be The Most Interesting Man in the World wheezing his way through Kardio Kickboxing. — I signed up at a gym this week; since I’m recently unemployed I figured that if I was going to be old and poor I might as well be jacked. It was the first time I’ve been in a fitness club since Covid, but I’m no noob. I’ve joined and…

Relationships are everything — A couple of months back, I lost my job. Well, it’s not really lost; I know where it is, I just don’t have it anymore. It came as no surprise. Three-quarters of the people on my team, including my boss, had been let go several months earlier and business hadn’t…

Republicans express concern that prayer resources are becoming overstretched — House Republicans plan to table a bill requiring that in future mass shootings, government-funded organizations wishing to offer support will have to choose between “thoughts or prayers” rather than the traditional “thoughts and prayers.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters, “It’s a simple resource issue. Given the number of mass…

You can kill a million ants and they’ll just keep coming — The ants are taking over the southeast corner of the living room, where they’ve established a major beachhead on the floor, both carpeted and hard-wooded. If you sit on the couch for a few minutes you’ll likely feel the delicate trace of six tiny legs weaving across your skin, or…

Seriously lady I’m not demented — I went to the dentist yesterday. I’ve been spending a lot of time there because every time I open my mouth they discover some new concern, often of a surprising nature, “Patrick, did you know the filling in your back molar is just compacted Double Bubble from the nineteen-seventies?” I…

Sometimes it takes an objective mind to make a difficult decision — Zar contemplated the data from the G2V star around which the ship was orbiting. It was certain that within the next solar day, the star would emit a flare of unprecedented magnitude, targeted directly at the third planet in its system. Zar shared the news with the home planet mind…

Sure, if you’re Brad Pitt. Otherwise, I’m calling BS — Last spring, when I still believed that online dating apps could lead to more than crippling bitterness and self-loathing, I scheduled a meet-up with a seemingly compatible woman. …

It’s a backward, blindered, dangerous, approach to education — I grew up in a time and place where racism was theoretically frowned upon, but widely accepted. In 1976, in my Grade 9 English class, students took turns reading aloud from a novel, which included the phrase “a chink in the curtains.” Everyone burst into riotous laughter at the familiar…