LITERATE APE

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Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of September 16, 2018

By David Himmel

• Most political news has become white noise to me. It’s hard to give it any real credence because it all feels like we’re living in a circus imagined by an LSD addict.

• I’m canceling my subscription to Esquire after more than a decade of being a loyal subscriber and reader. Since Jay Fielden became editor-in-chief, it’s become an apologetic magazine for angry feminists and their terrified husbands. Granted, the reporting and fiction is still of value but it’s become too hard for me to get past the loaded front half of the rag — even flipping through it — without getting annoyed or feeling talked down to. I’ll miss you, Esquire, but I’ve missed you for a few years now.

• Generally, I’m not a dumb person. But when it comes to matters of computer programming and modern-day file storage, I am one of the dumbest human beings on the planet. My level of idiocy is nerve-wracking and anger-inducing. Saving photos and music drives me to weep and drink.

• A day of good weather not spent on a boat under sail is a day wasted.

• I took my son to his first lit fest with the hope that it discouraged him from becoming a writer. And yet, I believe that any day at all spent not writing is a day wasted. My son is going to have a confusing childhood.

• I always want to be a better person. I always want to learn and improve from my mistakes. I always want to be a less frustrated, petty person who is easily annoyed. Attending Yom Kippur services at Temple Anshe Sholom makes that really difficult because watching a Jewish congregation in its dying days struggle to hold on after decades of poor choices makes me wish the place would just shut its doors, board up its windows and sell the building to the Baptists already.