1. One hundred pounds. Earlier this week I did the thing I was originally supposed to do. I’m 100 pounds lighter than I was on July 4th of 2023. I keep waiting for the “when you lose weight, you’ll feel better” part to happen. I don’t feel any worse, which is nice, but mostly after crossing this milestone and finding it unexpectedly to be not yet good enough to satisfy the medicos, I’m missing old habits – and old flavors. There’s simply no way to dress up steamed vegetables that will ever make me think they taste better than a giant goddamned slice of pizza or my classic eight-pound lasagna. Yes, I’m taking fewer meds and I’m probably healthier overall, but it turns out those things don’t taste like anything at all so it’s all ephemeral, theoretical, and extraordinarily hard to find especially motivating. If I do manage to take off the next 30, rest assured I’m doing it under protest.
2. Annual training. Every year there are approximately 187 online training classes we have to complete. Since the dawn of time, they must be done no later than the 30th day of October. It is known. It is planned for. What isn’t particularly helpful is the constant reminders, nagging, and not especially subtle nudges to “get some training done because the bosses are watching the numbers.” If the bosses want the training done before the time it’s required to be done, maybe they should change the date and establish a new deadline. In all my years of government service, I’ve never failed to complete this particular laundry list before the end of the fiscal year. That’s the standard. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I am somehow out of compliance with some kind of imaginary, unwritten standard that someone at echelons higher than reality has dreamt up in their own mind.
3. What’s after Mitch. Senator McConnell is stepping down as the leader of Senate Republicans. He’s clearly well past his best by date, but if nothing else, Mitch was the devil we knew and we could count on him to be fairly consistent. Learning who the current members of the Senate’s Republican caucus will turn to as their next leader will be… interesting. It also has every possibility of being terrifying if the extremist wing of the party manages to jam one of their own in the job. I’m beginning to understand why so many people are afraid of clowns.