Notes from the Cave

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my last couple of blog posts with thoughts and advice. It's appreciated. I've decided to go ahead and more or less disengage for the time being from politics. It's just too overwhelming and there is so little of real value that I can actually do. There's just no reason to feel guilty for being powerless to change anything. It's just reality.  I'll leave the hard work to those who are in better positions to fight than I am, and put my trust in their progress.

In other news...

I finally got a new desk chair at home. I had been without one for about a year since the last one broke down after years of abuse by my children, their friends, and my niece and nephews (not to mention my increasingly fatter ass sitting in it for untold hours). I'd had that chair since 2000. For the last year or so, I've been using a horribly uncomfortable metal folding chair. Thanks to a Christmas gift card, I've now got a Serta desk chair that is super comfortable. I could sit here and watch TV in it.

I also recently got a book of Elton John piano music. These are note-for-note transcripts of the recorded versions of the songs. I'd had one of these in college, but it was not with my other music books when I pulled them all back out last year after getting my piano. I have no idea what happened to it. It's been fun playing some of these old songs again. I only wish my friend Mike Houchens was still around to sing to them while I play. I've also got a Billy Joel book of the same type, although I think I like playing the Elton John songs better. Elton is a little more of a classical-type to Billy's jazz-inspired stuff.

I'm currently reading a book called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian. I highly recommend it. As the title suggests, it's an overview of literally all of human history, from our earliest human ancestors up through the 21st century. I'm still only on the "cave men" part, but the survey so far has been fascinating and informative.