The Bad & The Good

BAD:

- The angry line of women travelers outside the bathroom as it is being cleaned at the airport.
- The ever growing number of steps involved in almost everything. The credit card number itself used to be enough, now there is the additional code and expiration date. The human signature makes no difference.
- The wearing of pajamas in public without shame or fear of stoning.
- The intricacies of street parking in large American cities, with cars dancing like restless hungry squirrels from side to side for a few wasted hours each day, or hopefully, only twice a week.
- The seemingly eternal debate over abortion and a woman's right to choose when to have a baby. At least the right to own property is mine forever.
- Estrogen in the water from millions of women using birth control. It is making all the men write memoirs.
- The ever growing importance of pets.

GOOD:

- The expanding popularity of oysters, especially at happy hour. See also, lobster rolls.
- The inevitable and mercurial rise of the acceptance of same-sex marriage in the United States. I get visions of a world with no orphans.
- The feeling of a hand in yours, walking down a leafy, sleepy street on a spring night.
- The idea that maybe as we drift glumly away from our position as World Leader, maybe we can retire from the post of sherriff.
- The airline stewardess who offers easily to a passenger behind me, "Your eyes light up when you smile."
- The realization that I love my parents more now than I ever did when I really needed them.
- Getting a haircut
- Walking through a graveyard and having no fear of death.
- Dates, wrapped in bacon and stuffed with Manchego cheese