These Times

Kirk Ericson | Feb 06, 20250

If you’re looking to experience pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath and sloth, check out the internet. You’ll find a lot of options.

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The color palette for Western Washingtonians’ clothing in winter could be described as “functional drab.”

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If you go on a 10-mile ride on your electric bike, please don’t say you went on a “10-mile bike ride.” You should say, “I went on a 10-mile electric bike ride.”

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It’s amazing people can learn English. Hats off to them. I’ve been speaking English for more than 60 years and I’m still learning English, especially slang. Imagine coming in fresh to phrases such as “the cat’s out of the bag,” “break a leg” and “hats off to them.”

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Being capable of successful self-diagnosis, self-prescription and self-remedy is essential to being mentally and physically comfortable.

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When I’m done washing dishes, I think, “Good. The dishes are done.” But really, the dishes are only temporarily done. The dishes are never really done. They just keep coming.

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I bet there has been an instance in America where a Styrofoam beer can cooler was passed down as a family heirloom.

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Soon after I entered some friends’ home a few weeks ago, I walked into the kitchen, where the wife was on the phone. I got a cup of coffee. My friend was repeating the words “yeah, yeah, yeah” and “uh huh, uh huh, uh huh” into the phone in varying cadences to express, politely, that she wanted to end the call. But the other person ignored — or was unaware of — the signal my friend was sending. After three or four minutes, with no other words contributed by my friend except “yeah” and “uh huh,” the conversation ended. People … when someone is saying nothing but “yeah” and “uh huh” during a conversation, you’re not holding up your end of the contract. You must adjust. Either end the conversation or say something that prompts a response other than “yeah, yeah, yeah” and “uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.”

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A couple of weeks ago, a close friend of mine told me a close friend of his had died. The phrase, “I’m sorry for your loss” popped into my head, but I dismissed it because my friend has even less tolerance for cliches than I do. Instead, I told him, “I hope you can successfully integrate the sadness you’re feeling into your being.” He said thanks, and he meant it, because I meant it.

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Sometimes consciousness has its moments.

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Three types of workers are critical to the proper functioning of a democracy: ethical lawyers and engineers, and politicians without deformed egos.

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Starting when I was a teen, I had the desire to appear average. I wanted to be able to pull off average acts, such as being able to say “hello” or contribute to a conversation. As I aged, I adjusted my goal. I surrendered hopes of being average and concentrated instead on appearing average. I’ll let others judge how well I’m pulling that one off.

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A 12-year-old once told me, “I can’t wait to meet my children’s friends.”

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I’ve gotten better at parallel parking as I’ve aged. I can sometimes parallel park with just one turn; often just two turns. Rarely does it take three. And when I’m parallel parking, I often think about the writer Kurt Vonnegut. “They say the first thing to go when you’re old is your legs or your eyesight. It isn’t true,” Vonnegut wrote. “The first thing to go is parallel parking.”