My older sister, who lives in NW Indiana loves the Cubs largely because she says they’re the “cutest” team in baseball. She also loves politics; her husband and family; and if my brother-in-law is to be believed, most of all, buying new shoes. She’s the best, better than the rest.
So I texted her Tuesnight, “Team El-Sayed or Team Stevens?” Reply. “Stevens has better numbers now against the R.” Pause, bubbles, then, “Stevens is too pro-Israel for me.”
We know now Michigan voters agreed, but that’s not the real story. The real story is the continuing underrepresentation of redheads in Congress and a bubbling up of previous “Red Scare” rhetoric about communism which is obviously a cover for normalizing ginger-hate.
My reply to my sissy, “I never recovered from McMarrow’s exit. Redheads severely underrepresented in Congress.”
We cannot restore our democracy without having Congress grow a pair and we can’t expect that to happen without a Red Hair Wave in November. Bring the fire! Michigan swung and missed. Don’t let your state do the same.
My brothers, not as lovely as my sister. They taunted me throughout my childhood with, “I’d rather be dead than red on the head.” I think they speak for the vast majority of people with inferior colored hair, for example, blondes, brunettes, people with black hair.
To blunt the probable protests, “You don’t have any hair, how can you identify as a redhead?!” Put this picture in your pipe and smoke it.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, whoever gave me that haircut is a bigger threat to the common good than any nefarious political administration or movement. Can a lawyer please weigh in on whether there is a statue of limitations for suing for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress? DM your contact info if you’re willing to take my case.
The University of Chicago Law School for the win. It’s dean and new AI strategy more specifically which might be described as “both/and”. Becky Supiano explains in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“Its policies are meant to ensure that students learn how to use AI responsibly and how to think without depending on it. As newer AI models prove adept at many forms of legal work, it aims to prioritize distinctly human contributions.”
No AI in first year courses. Then a combo of hybrid courses and AI-specific ones. All the following excerpts are from Supiano’s interview with the law school’s Dean, Adam Chilton.
“The emphasis that we have is: How do we teach students to think both without AI and with AI? That second part is important.”
Chicago Law’s smart approach to assessing the first year AI ban and their curriculum more generally.
“We’ll have to see how faculty and students feel about it and how the quality of discussion is.
Our goal is to be willing to re-evaluate everything that we’re doing more thoughtfully. The technology and the students’ uses of it — and also the way the legal practice is evolving — seems to be changing very fast.”
More points for a smart writing add-on.
“I’ve heard many people say essays and research papers are done, we can’t do them anymore. We added, for our substantial research projects, an oral-exam component. That helps to at least preserve the possibility of still having meaningful writing assignments, because the students know they’re going to have to defend it. The skill of defending your arguments through oral exchanges is a skill that everybody needs, but certainly lawyers.”
Enlightened thinking about AI integration.
“We’ve adopted what we’re calling a layered approach. We’ll have some assignments that you do entirely without AI — some in class, some out of class — and other assignments where explicitly you’re told to use AI. You know: Here’s an AI work product. Mark it up.
Even in that first year of law school, it’s true that when you’re sitting in your torts class, you won’t be allowed to have Claude up to ask it questions in real time, but you still have another class where that’s integrated directly into the curriculum.”
What about assessing the new curriculum more broadly?
“The feedback I’ve gotten from employers has been universally and overwhelmingly positive. Employers are thinking they want to hire people — and maybe they’re going to hire fewer people or people that they want to have different skills — and they want to make sure those people learned something. And so what the employer worries about is that they might hire someone who just took an assignment, pasted it into Harvey, edited it for 30 minutes, and then passed it off as their own. And the lawyer is thinking, If that’s all you’re able to do, what’s your value add over what our clients could already do themselves?”
If I was applying to law schools, and yes I probably should because the world surely needs another lawyer of my caliber, I would have the University of Chicago at the top of my list. Also because I could see my favorite sissy, who lives in NW Indiana, any weekend I wanted.
Last weekend, I returned to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. A lot has changed in a third of the year.
Literally, one week after my last sad sack solo visit to Victoria, I went on a dinner date with Lara in Olympia. A week before that date, right before my solo sojourn to Vic, I complained while on a Saturday run with the Inner Circle that it was really a crying shame that I couldn’t leverage my bofo blog readership to maybe find a winning match. You know, put out a call to PressingPausers near and far . . . Knucklehead writer in search of . . .
Why couldn’t I do that? Because my daughters, one who visits here at least semi-regularly, were already very upset me with for having gone on another date well before they ever anticipated that happening. One said she felt abandoned by me. And that I broke her heart.
That’s a huge burden to bear.
We have three family therapy sessions lined up during August. We will repair and restart. We still love one another and the alternative is way too tough to ponder.
Back to the Inner Circle and my mid-March Olympia dinner date. A few hours after whining on that SatRun, I got a text from one of my running bros, who said his partner had a single girlfriend, and they thought we might hit it off. They provided Lara with a link to the humble blog, and against all odds, she liked what she read. Something about me seeming smart and funny. Score.
However, Lara said she (also) thought it was too early for me to start dating. When she told her friend she thought I should wait a year, her friend told her I wouldn’t be single in a year. I dunno, because humble blogging is such an obvy aphrodisiac?
Long story short, they were right, we did hit it off. Bigly. So bigly, Lara didn’t hesitate when I invited her to visit one of my fave places with me.
And so this visit couldn’t have been more different than the last. One contributing factor was idyllic weather. Sunny, not hot, just exquisite. We cruised the coast on the hotel bikes Friday night and Saturday morn. Serendipitously, Vic’s major summer art festival was happening, 50,000 peeps, including us, descending on Moss Street. 20k steps later, we were whipped.
A serious foodie, Lara really took to my ace hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Foo Asian Street Food. It was fun to introduce her to that and my other favorite spots in and around Vic. And I’m happy to report she takes way less bathroom counter space than I do, inadvertently making me feel High Maintenance by comparison.
Saturday, she made sure I took a little time to lift little weights. Sunday morning I went for a run along the coast. Afterwards, while caffeine loading in our room, she insisted I watch some of The Open Championship which she didn’t know existed a week earlier. She read outside while I pretended to be at Royal Birkdale, in Southport, England. Heavenly.
However, it wasn’t as if the much more outdoorsy, active, fun, near perfect trip wasn’t without its crises. Foremost among them, we did not have time for a halibut burger. Even more sad, sometime this spring, the Courtyard Cafe stopped making fruit smoothies. To say I’m hurt they didn’t include me in the decision, is a huge understatement. Is it possible I am not the Hotel Grand Pacific VIP I think I am?
Sam Miller, a comedian from my hometown, Olympia, WA, has lived a few lives. As a comic, he has a lot of momentum, performing before increasingly large crowds.
Speaking of momentum, no family ever sits still. Families are organic, every single one always with some degree of momentum, either positive or negative, based upon the adults’ collective decisions. Often, the momentum is barely perceptible. In Sam Miller’s family’s case, it’s plain as day.
Today, online, he wrote this. I’m guessing he pounded it out, not overthinking it. But lo’ and behold, it couldn’t be more profound.
“One time my dad picked me up and threw me off a dock into the cold waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There was no warning. Before I realized what was happening, I was airborne. I hit that water, and even though I was a good swimmer, it was hard to peel my elbows from my side. I wanted to stay curled up in a ball but I also wanted to breathe and so I swam back to the dock. My dad’s hand came down and pulled me out. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but I just looked it up. Temperatures in the strait of Juan de Fuca hover between 41 and 54°.
He told me he did it because we spent a lot of time fishing the Straits. He wanted me to know what it would be like to fall off the boat or off the dock. That way I would know what that water felt like and I wouldn’t panic.
I thought I did something wrong. I thought he was angry. He told me he wasn’t. I believed him then. I don’t believe it now. I think he got angry and he lost control and he threw me off that dock because my dad was really bad at dealing with his emotions.
I bring this up because I just spent 8 days with my kids and my mom on a vacation/comedy tour. There were multiple moments where I became incredibly frustrated. There was a couple moments where I was just downright angry. I feel like I had really good reason to be angry a couple times.
I’m really proud to report that I did not yell or scream or pick anybody up and throw them.
I know it’s not true, but I used to think me and my family was cursed. My dad died when I was a kid. I don’t know too much about how he grew up because he didn’t talk about it that much but I know my grandma on my dad’s side had schizophrenia. When my dad and his brother were kids, she drove them to Long Beach, California from Salem, Oregon and just dropped them off in the middle of nowhere. My dad had to hitchhike back while taking care of his kid brother. Pretty sure my dad was 12 or 13 when that happened.
What I’m getting at is this…
I have such an opportunity today to do better and I’m so grateful that I have the tools to keep trying.
I’m a pretty good dad, I’m a pretty good husband, and I’m even a pretty good son now. It’s hard but it feels really good. There are times I wish I could throw people off docks.
but…
I don’t think I ever would. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to me. Whatever curse my family had, I’m going to try to keep doing the work to make it stop with me. I owe it to the people that I love and most of all I owe it to myself.”
“I’m going to try to keep doing the work to make it stop with me.” Amen, brother.
“Rates of ‘gray divorce’ — splits among those 50 and older — have risen sharply in the United States, doubling between 1990 and 2010. Though those rates have stabilized since the pandemic, nearly 40 percent of divorces today occur between people 50 and older.”
Key definition.
“‘Empty-shell marriages’ are ones in which there is no real connection or vitality, where one or both partners are not happy. . .”
The key reasons according to Justin Garcia, the executive director of the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind., and the author of The Intimate Animal: The Science of Sex, Fidelity, and Why We Live and Die for Love.
“’We as a species are in longer relationships than our ancestors ever were,’ he said. ‘Lifelong monogamy maybe meant a few decades.’ Now, though, there are couples who have been together for 50, 60 or even 70-plus years.
‘That is evolutionarily unprecedented for our species,’ Dr. Garcia said.
At the same time, societal expectations for what marriage can or should be have changed. Baby boomers who got married relatively young — in part because that was simply the norm — are now living through a time when marriage is seen as a vehicle for love and self-actualization, said Claire Kamp Dush, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota.
‘We’re not just partnering based on this idea that someone’s going to be the breadwinner and someone’s going to be the homemaker,’ she said. It is possible, she added, that our collective tolerance for staying in just a so-so relationship ‘is going down.'”
RX from the Bay Area, commented, “. . . it’s mostly because women are over it.”
Three other top commenters point to an uneven and unfair division of labor as a key catalyst for calling it quits after decades of being together.
Because the author of the piece only used heterosexual examples, and the author and top commenters focused almost exclusively on unfair workloads, we end up with what feels like a relatively simplistic understanding of “gray divorce”.
For example, the author of the piece references, and the top commenters repeatedly emphasize, that women want to finally be free of caring for their male partners while men who divorce tend to remarry, often quite quickly, because “men need to be taken care of”.
Classic painting with a broad brush. “Some” men, even “many men” would be a much better way to word that.
Let’s consider a counter example. Your fave blogger. At first glance, your fave blogger’s decision to begin dating someone three months after his beloved wife died, after 38 years together, might be further proof of men being woefully dependent upon someone to cook and clean for them. Because, as the female author and top commenters seem to think, men can’t cook and clean for themselves.
Sigh. I don’t know how much depth to go into here, with respect to sharing with you dear reader my rationale for deciding to date before learning it was way, way before my daughters were ready for it. But suffice to say, my rationale had nothing to do with being taken care of. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not to brag, but I can hold my own in the kitchen and I will out clean you. Just sayin’.
How ’bout a four-word summary of what could be a four thousand word explanation. I began dating because I sought emotional connection. Which is one word more than it takes to say I was lonely. Weirdly, the concept of emotional intimacy is completely skirted around in the article and top comments.
A friend and I have been sparing a bit on the topic of the patriarchy. Often while hiking. This will surprise no one. I’m losing. She runs circles around me on the topic because she thoughtfully articulates the negative consequences of the patriarchy on men. A key point that too many feminists gloss over. In particular, she correctly points out that entrenched patriarchal norms make it very difficult for men to develop much, if any, emotional intelligence. Without which, emotional intimacy is a non-starter.
Despite some countervailing evidence, most men can learn to vacuum and load and unload dishwashers. And pick up their underwear. Much, much more easily than they can learn to communicate about their inner lives. And much, much more easily than they can learn to tap into their partner’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
I am not an expert and any reader of the female persuasion correct me if I’m wrong about what follows.
I have a strong hunch that many women would like to have their partners do a load or ten of laundry and make them dinner and clean up afterwards, but what every woman would love, especially in empty-shell marriages, is the opportunity to talk about each other’s inner lives in as vulnerable and patient and regulated a manner as possible. So as to feel safe, to feel seen, to feel loved unconditionally. And then to reciprocate. Over and over. For however many years are left.
What has the post-‘rona world wrought? People connecting. Hell yeah.
Patricia Marx in The New Yorker:
“When my editor asked whether I’d be interested in writing about the growing trend of friends getting together to tackle to-do lists, I thought, “Sounds about as fun as a group root canal.” I e-mailed back, “YES!” It was February; I hate the cold; the research would take place indoors. Also, I figured, it might take a village to make me get that comptroller form notarized, memorize the map of South America (don’t ask), and write my will—an item on my list for eighteen years. (As for to-do-list items that never die, thirty-three years ago, the agenda of a friend of mine included: No. 1, get my figure back; No. 2, dance lessons . . . No. 8, figure out if I should break up with Tim; No. 9, leave Tim. Not his real name, because my friend is still wondering about divorcing him.)
Everyone, it turns out, has a lot of shit to do, and many find the drudgery easier to slog through in the presence of company and snacks. Over the course of two months, I sat in on eight Admin Nights, as these gatherings are often called. (“Are they, like, fossils of extinct mollusks?” a hedge-fund guy at a dinner party asked me, thinking of ammonites.) There was a meetup of young mothers who had a lot of children’s birthday parties to organize, a group of Gen Z-ers whose morning session had a live soundtrack provided by a d.j., and a group of people with A.D.H.D., based mostly in Australia, who meet regularly on Zoom. At the Women in Games get-together, a seven-year-old attendee, brought by her mother, marvelled that grownups have homework, too.”
This morning, on the way to Masters swim practice at the Y, I saw three women running shoulder to shoulder on the Henderson Rd sidewalk by Olympia High School. They were not fast, at all, but that’s irrelevant. They had found each other, agreed to meet up, and were clearly vibbing, talking through who knows what. Simultaneously improving their physical and mental health.
And props for your introverted humble blogger for livening up Masters by asking the women in Lane 3, “Do you know the Masters swim team secret?” Looking perplexed, they repeated, “Masters swim team secret?” “Yeah, this lane has the best technique.” They were touched and proudly added their lane was also the most jovial. Five women connected, happier together, living fully.
Maybe I shoulda started this out by writing . . . some people connecting. Social anxiety shows no sign of abating. And we’re way less likely to see our lonely, socially anxious neighbors struggling to find connection. Because often, they can’t even leave their homes.
Here’s to celebrating connection while continuously extending the circles of friendship we’re lucky enough to enjoy.
“It’s like anything. It’s like, you grow, you change, you start having conversations about that in your relationship, and it just got to a point where we realized it might not be working anymore.”
AIRBALL! The least informative explanation of an uncoupling of all time by the WNBA leader in assists and games played. The first thing I taught my writing students was to avoid vague words and phrases. Words like “anything”, “change”, “that”, “it”, “anymore”.
Of course, Sue Bird doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, but since she attempted to provide one, she’s going to have to resubmit it. No exceptions, even for 13 time All-Stars.
What on earth has happened to the eclectic humble blog? I know what you’re thinking, you didn’t sign up for this. DM for subscription refunds. Oh wait, the humble blog is free, so complain accordingly.
Today you had a smorgasbord of sports viewing options. Always a thrill, you coulda stood anywhere on Delphi, Waddell Creek, or Chein Hill and watched the boys and me go uphill at superhuman speeds. At least that’s how I remember today’s ride. Or you coulda watched the M’s lose in the 9th to the Tigers. Or Zverev finally break through in a major. Or, if truly enlightened, you coulda watched the pro golf playoff at Jack’s course.
Or you coulda watched the correct thing. Women’s professional golf. Specifically, the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera, won by 27 year old Nelly Korda after her 2’10” final putt circled the entire cup before disappearing.
Korda is kool and I was very happy to see her win, but there were at least two other noteworthy stories you may have easily missed. But I got you.
Since time immemorial, women professional golfers have been playing for approximately 15% of what their male counterparts do because it’s been hard for the women’s tour to attract nearly as many eyeballs, and therefore, television sponsors. Today’s purse was a record, a whopping $12.5 million. On Wednesday, Korda will continuously check her checking account until her $2.5 million dollar wire hits. By the time she pays her caddy, other team members, federal, and CA taxes, it might be half of that, but I digress. The good news is that today the women played for more than the men do during a regular tournament week and for 62.5% of the fewer in number PGA Signature Events. That constitutes serious progress.
Second, dig this very short Gaby Lopez clip. Lopez is Mexican and finished one stroke back, tied for second. These days, when it comes to both cultural diversity and immigration, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by depressing news and to lose hope that we’ll ever thoughtfully and peacefully figure either one out. We would all be a lot better off if we just pressed pause and channeled Gaby Lopez’s attitude.
“Before MacKenzie Scott signed the Giving Pledge and started on her path to give away her $36 billion net worth, she went looking for a paragraph in a book she’d marked up during her college years.
She opened her Giving Pledge letter with a memory of pulling Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life off a shelf of her old college books, where she found a passage that she had ‘underlined and starred.’ Dillard’s advice to writers was to not hoard your best material for some later chapter.
‘The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now,’ Dillard wrote, warning that otherwise, ‘you open your safe and find ashes.’ Scott took the writing advice literally and applied it to her massive fortune.
For the past six years, Scott has remained committed to emptying her safe, so to speak. She’s donated more than $26 billion across more than 2,700 gifts through her philanthropic organization, Yield Giving. Her marquee year was in 2025 when she donated an eye-popping $7.2 billion. (That’s more than Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, have given over their entire lifetimes, according to Forbes estimates). The publication also named Scott the third-most generous philanthropist in the world this year, noting she has given away 46% of her net worth.
True to the Dillard ethos, she gives fast and lets go. Her philanthropic style is stroking unrestricted checks with no applications, no progress reports, and almost no press.”
Absolutely certain it doesn’t mean anything to MacKenzie Scott to be named the “third-most generous philanthropist in the world” this year. In fact, I’m pretty sure if she had her way, pieces like this one would never appear in print. What a role model.
Don’t hoard. Don’t find ashes. Annie Dillard with one of the most amazing assits of all-time.
Last night I went for a beautiful sunset run. West Bay, Tugboat Annie’s flyby, and back to Cap Lake for a short out and back. I unplugged and started walking at the base of the sidewalk ramp beside the Fifth Street Bridge. And that’s where our story begins. A story I could use your help processing.
Halfway up the first switchback, just above Deschutes Parkway, a women was lying on a blanket seemingly going through her bedtime routine. All sorts of accessories were spread across her blanket which covered the entire width of the sidewalk. As I approached, she said, “You can go around the other way.” Haha, I thought to myself, I’m not taking the unnecessarily long route tonight.
So your intrepid reporter stepped over and around her with one of my dogs landing smack dab on her blanky. Which set her off a bit. “I’m going to say you raped me.” Unable to process that, I kept walking. And then, “Faggot.” That got me to u-turn and engage. Feel free to deduct points at this point.
What I should’ve said is “Homophobic much?” Instead, I asked a question, “Why don’t you think people should be able to walk on this public sidewalk?” Brown skinned, maybe even indigenous, she said, “Because it’s my land.” To which I said, “Well, thank you for letting me use it tonight.” Close curtains.
Come on, you have to give me back the points you previously deducted for the smoothish ending.
This story is either a run-of-the-mill anecdote or an important case study about class differences, urban life, and how we will or won’t get along. Or something in between, I’m not sure.
The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know my neighbor’s story. Nothing could explain away what she said, but I’m disinclined to castigate her more generally for being troubled and impoverished since I have no idea how she ended up going to sleep on the sidewalk ramp above Deschutes Parkway.
Pressing Pause 