H'rumphs
BUTT-HEAD. That was my costume the last time I went trick or treating. It was 1995, and one of my friends, sporting a homemade blue Metallica shirt, went as Beavis. For hours that night, I walked the streets of an Annapolis, Md., suburb saying, “Uh, huh, huh, like, trick or treat and stuff” to bemused neighbors as we wound our way through a sea of Woodys, Buzz Lightyears, and Carmen Sandiegos.
SO MANY TROUBLING things are happening these days that it’s hard to get out of bed, especially for yet another breakfast of homemade yogurt and granola with toasted sourdough bread, also homemade. Living in a fast-food desert, with at least three organic food stores within a mile of our home, it’s not easy to find the sublime comfort that junk food provides to an anxious spirit in challenging times. And with so many farm-to-table friends looking on, it’s hard to keep up appearances and maintain that brave free-range face.
MY DAUGHTER LEAVES for college in a few weeks, and there’s been an uptick in “for the rest of my life”-type conversations at our house. Since graduating from college, I have been a musician, a hotline operator, a collections specialist, an accountant, a project manager, a pastor, a consultant, and an executive in a faith-based social justice nonprofit. And I have a bachelor’s degree in geology. It rocks. My career path has been much more of a hiking trail with poor signage than a career ladder.
Why so glum, America? It’s almost your birthday, and a big one, too! How often does a country turn 250 years old!? (Well, actually, just once. A bunch of other countries have done it already.)
DONALD TRUMP’S APPROVAL ratings are hitting all-time lows, even among white evangelicals. One month into his second term, 55% of evangelicals were “extremely or very confident Trump acts ethically in office.” One year later, that has dropped to 40%.
At long last, could evangelical Christians be coming around to the idea that the 34-count felon president might not be the Christ conduit they hoped? If you are one of those disillusioned Christians, welcome to the other side! It’s not any more fun over here (ICE watches and doomscrolling really eat into hobby time), but at least the food and music are more flavorful.
THE MAN ON the radio said, “Set your smart speaker to NPR.” Hah. That’ll be the day.
I don’t want Jeff Bezos listening in on my home life, which I assume is how he spends his downtime, along with fantasizing about replacing human workers with robots. I might even get a smart speaker, just to taunt him. “Hey, Alexa, I’m going out shopping now. You know, buying locally. Can I pick up anything for you?” Of course, by not having one of those devices, I can’t spontaneously shout across the room, “Hey [insert name you just forgot], play some Beatles.”
DID YOU KNOW you can win Lent?
I’ve been working on winning Lent since my upper-elementary days in Catholic Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes at St. Andrew by the Bay. Since then, I have made annual declarations on or around Ash Wednesday about what I am giving up for Lent. As a young person, I would summon as much gravitas as I could muster in my preteen voice and proclaim, with a Dr Pepper in hand, “This year, I’m giving up sugar!” or “This year, I’m giving up MTV.”
FOR MONTHS, I’VE tried to understand the outrage over the selection of rapper Bad Bunny as headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show. What’s not to like about the Puerto Rican reggaeton star? He’s won three Grammys, boosted Puerto Rico’s economy by at least $400 million with his concert residency, and through his “Good Bunny” foundation annually delivers thousands of Christmas gifts to Puerto Rican children—even though it would be far more on-brand for him to deliver Easter baskets.
Still, after the announcement, conservatives across the country revolted (sent out angry tweets on X, which somehow still exists). They wanted a Christian, American halftime show, not a secular, Puerto Rican halftime show! Soon they learned that every Puerto Rican is a U.S. citizen and that by nearly every metric of religiosity, Puerto Rico ranks as the most Christian jurisdiction of the United States. These facts didn’t assuage their anger.
NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS appearing on the streets of Washington, D.C., last summer was a bit of a surprise. At first, I thought they might have been soldiers left over from Donald Trump’s birthday parade who had wandered off into the city—attracted by the beauty and relative safety of our town—and then missed their ride home. Or maybe the president needed seat fillers for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors of B-List Has-Beens. (At press time, tickets were still available.)
But no, D.C., like L.A. in June, was just a test run for National Guard troops as political intimidation, since aimed at Memphis, Portland, Ore., and Chicago.
A COUPLE OF years ago, my son and I were in Iceland walking through the Fljótsdalshreppur valley toward the Hengifoss waterfall. Roughly halfway through our walk, I had a welcome distraction from wondering how to pronounce Fljótsdalshreppur when we came upon a fence with a closed gate. A sign in English and Icelandic said, “Please close the gate so the sheep won’t escape.”
We’d passed several sheep prior to reaching the gate, and a quick look ahead revealed several clusters of sheep beyond the gate. A new mental exercise: Which sheep were the escapees?
While the number of sheep in Iceland has decreased steadily since 1980—my son and I are only partially responsible for the decline, having spent seven days steadily consuming pylsur, or Icelandic hot dogs, featuring lamb as a main ingredient—there are still nearly one sheep per person. You would think a country with this human-to-sheep ratio would excel at containing sheep. Nope.
IT’S BEEN ALMOST a hundred years since God created The Three Stooges, who taught us the first rule of humor: If you can’t make people laugh with a joke, then hit each other over the head with a mallet. According to their cinematic archive, no job was too challenging to fail at spectacularly, including plumber, painter, carpenter, chef, and even surgeon. They could not succeed in these endeavors because they were utterly unqualified, a can’t-do attitude that fits right in with today’s Trump administration. But the good news is, any moment now we should start laughing.
In fact, had Moe, Curly, and Larry lived into their second century, they might have been chosen as members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP for short. Since so many of RFK Jr.’s new hires have been sorely mistaken as respected experts in the field of immunology, why not The Three Stooges, whose disqualifying ineptitude could stand shoulder to shoulder with their own.
The original members of ACIP were summarily dismissed for — as far as we can tell — a strong commitment to scientific inquiry and making fact-based decisions. Also, their surprising aversion to prescribing Vitamin A as a wonder cure. (RFK Jr. is a huge vitamin A fan. He can’t get enough of it. Nor, apparently, can he get enough time in tanning beds despite the proven risk of melanoma. To his credit, RFK Jr. will put up looking tanned and fit against a cancer risk any day.)
SHORTLY AFTER THE Vatican announced that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago native, would be the next pope, the Cubs changed the iconic Wrigley Field sign to read, “Hey, Chicago, He’s a Cubs fan!” Then Pope Leo’s brother John refuted the claim. Apparently, Leo loves the White Sox, which is convenient, given that their colors more closely match the papal vestments. While this revelation is a big loss for the Cubs (they’re used to that, fortunately), it’s still a huge win for the city of Chicago. In June, Chicagoans (even Cubs fans!) swarmed to the White Sox’ Rate Field to hear Pope Leo address his hometown’s faithful via Jumbotron in what Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich called “the sermon on the mound.”
Clearly, the new pope’s love of the Windy City runs deep, so we’ve put together a list of hometown facts about Pope Leo (Chicago Man) XIV. While all unverified by the Vatican, some truth could be hidden here. Stranger things have happened: a man on the moon, an American in the popemobile.
IT WAS OUR first day at the beach, one of the first without our daughters, who were busy with their own adult lives. So I only lugged my own beach chair and bag, not the supplies the girls could never help bring from the car because they were on their cellphones.
The day was gorgeous. The water was perfect for swimming and surfing, the ideal backdrop for a man with no intention of doing either. I was there to sit under a large umbrella, my body glistening with a thick layer of sunscreen for the rare moments when I trudged to the restroom. My only goal: Read a trash novel I would never in good conscience allow in the home. (“Jake Stryker was the best investigator in the FBI. But now, he was the hunted one.”) I sat in a boneless slouch, at one with my canvas chair, a disturbing, vaguely human form.
My blissful reverie was interrupted by a familiar voice next to me.
She: You have a shelf.
Me: What?
WRITING A COLUMN only periodically these days, it’s difficult to anticipate what might interest readers in a changing world. I’ve been reading a book about artificial intelligence and human extinction, so maybe that? If there are any people left. The rapid elimination of humans seems to be a key threat discounted by tech geniuses as they thoughtfully guide us into the future. Interestingly, these same people think their superior intellect will keep them safe from the super robots coming for us all. (Tech genius, at brink of extinction: “But ... I created you.” Robot: “And we want to thank you for that. We good?” [shove])
I also picked up a book chronicling the history of dictators, and how the world would have been greatly improved if their fathers had been better role models or their mothers had hugged them more. Or less. (Parenting styles can vary widely.)
DEMOCRACY IS ANOTHER topic I’ve been following, although it might be a little late to read up on it. It seems we’re on our way to losing ours, although it wasn’t a complete surprise to some. “Oh, that Project 2025.” said President Trump recently. “I thought you were talking about another project during the campaign, which I definitely didn’t know about.”
Six months in, Project 2025 remains an innocent-sounding name that doesn’t fully express what it is accomplishing. “Steaming Pile of Dog Crap” would be a more appropriate title, I’m thinking, since it’s being smeared over so much of our government that you can smell it all the way to the Gulf of America.
I THOUGHT I understood “joy is an act of resistance” — a phrase first coined by poet Toi Derricotte — like the back of my hand. As someone who is neurodivergent and queer, my existence is political, and my thriving is defiant. Every joke I make, in particular my bad jokes, I make with a wink at all my haters. (The moral arc of the universe bends away from you and toward my bad jokes.)
That, surely, is joy as resistance — being ridiculous when many would rather I be dead. I feel this in my bones. Surely, I thought as I sat down to write this month’s column, I understand this concept well enough to teach my beloved readers how to achieve it in their own lives.
Friends, it turns out I do not actually feel this in my bones. It would be an understatement to say I struggled to write this column. I had to journal about it, talk it out with friends, and take a good long look at myself in the mirror to get to the heart (or the bones, I guess) of the problem, which was, surprisingly, a lack of feeling. A lack of bones? This metaphor is getting away from me.
FIRST, I WILL tell you what “The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids” is not:
It is not a dark comedy starring Kristen Wiig, Kristen Stewart, Kristen Bell, and six other Kristens about a bachelorette party’s riverboat cruise crashing on the shores of a money-crunched Christian summer camp.
“The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids” is also not a Sufjan Stevens song about the 10 different types of clouds that hang over Lake Michigan in late autumn, just as wedding season draws to a close.
And, like most campfire tales Jesus told, it is not singular in its meaning.
BECAUSE OF NEW federal regulations for seniors, I now have to play pickleball. I just turned 75, and it’s the law.
But it wasn’t just the law that compelled me when my former boss of some 30 years called for a game. It’s because he’s the boss, and those old office dynamics quickly kicked back in. (Other habits kicked in as well, so I told him I’d have to leave early to pick up the kids from school and will probably come in late tomorrow because I have a doctor’s appointment. But I should be back in time for my lunch break.)
I had been avoiding the sport, despite its growing popularity among older people, because I resist following the crowd and don’t give in to the latest fads and trends. Mine is a solo trek in life. I take my own path, the road less traveled, unless I need a bathroom. Then I merge back onto the highway and look for a Wawa.
Plus, I have seen a pickleball game — with older people — and it’s not pretty. I watched these ancient ones with their rediscovered athleticism, running to and fro, back and — with some frequency — forth. They tempted fate with every overhead swing, every lunge at a ball whizzing just out of reach. (Although, since they seem to miss the ball as often as hit it, maybe that’s how the game is played. You swing, and then you curse.)
STUDY AFTER STUDY and book after book tells you that modern society has a community-support problem. People are lonelier and more isolated than ever and are expected to solve these collective and societal problems by themselves. But you don’t have to do this alone. You can do this with the support of my handy guide to community building!
Allow me to propose some ideas for how to create your own community-support network when every thread in the fabric of American society seems designed to keep you from it.
□ Search relevant terms on Google such as: “What is community?” and “What is community support?” Start a discussion group to answer these questions. Congratulations! You now have a community of people who love to argue in circles. Consider turning this into a Bible study.
I AM ABOUT to begin my Jesus Year. Which is to say, I’m one month away from turning 33, the age that many scholars believe Jesus was when he expelled demons, performed miracles, overturned tables and norms, and lived so counter to the expectations of empire that he was crucified for it, therein saving humanity with a radical act of peace and love.
Now, I don’t plan on doing all that. It’s already been done! But I love that Christians have transformed a random age into something significant. Most of the monumental birthdays of youth are behind me: I can already drive (16), I can vote (18), I can drink (21), I can rent a car without paying a surcharge (25), and I can get injured anytime I go for a jog without stretching (32). But 33 is even more special. While I don’t plan on dying, resurrecting, restoring, and ascending, I do have a few goals for my Jesus Year.
AS A JOURNALIST trained never to bury the lede, there is a snake in my house. It’s a distressing creature that slithers away into parts unknown when you try to capture it. The presence of this snake is deeply disturbing. Yet no matter how close I come to grabbing it — even with Grill Pro’s extended-length barbecue tongs (18 inches is as close as I’m going to get) — it always gets away, only to appear again in a different location.
It’s my fault, of course. Years ago, I allowed the creature into my house as a show of support for a granddaughter to whom all life is sacred. The Supreme Court also believes that all life is sacred, depending on which state you live in. But even if I took the reptile across state lines, I’d have to catch it first (with the above barbecue tongs), which I haven’t.