[Seth Says] Any artist aspires at appreciation...

...and atypical artists also adore alliteration, added an annoying author anticlimactically.
 

As always, I thank you for joining me for the latest installment of my newsletter. I am filled with the kind of gratitude most people don't get for another few decades until they're dying like Lou Gehrig and giving an echoey speech on the baseball field. But then again, we're also amidst pandemics, a climate crisis, political instability, so maybe we've all got the necessary memento morii.

I am doing very well given the world. I have the good fortune to live in a house I like, with a woman I like (like, LIKE like)(which means love, not that she's an amorphous pile of pancakes that might eat any shields she encounters)(That video game reference will elude 90% of my audience, but it's my newsletter and it makes me laugh. I'm not even bothering to provide a Link of explanation), and a job I can do from home. For all the awfulness going on in the world, I've thankfully managed to avoid suffering from it as much as most people I know. I am very fortunate.

That said, this past year has still been pretty terrible for me. Possibly my least favorite year in the past couple decades, thanks not only to the aforementioned global awfulness, but also bad news and events in my own little sphere every three months or so. Yes, it's weird for that to be simultaneously true along with the preceding paragraph, but they are indeed both true.

And both of those things have increased my appreciation of what (and who) I have. Amidst feeling lucky like things are going my way, I think, "I'm fortunate." And amidst things falling apart, I look at what I still have and think, "I'm fortunate." And this goes double for gratitude towards my friends who somehow stay in touch with me despite my antipathy for phones and travel, now with the added wrinkle that I am avoiding indoor socializing thanks to the pandemic. (I've transcended "no fun at parties" to become no at parties.) At this point covid protocols are the only thing preventing me from hugging most of my friends on sight.

Not to get all Leo Buscaglia on you (there's another reference for only 10% of my audience. I'm going to become the Dennis Miller of newsletters)(Don't worry, I will never become like Dennis Miller)(also at least it's a different 10% than will get the first reference. Maybe if I make 8 more obscure references I can cover everybody, like a giant afghan)(I can make the blanket statement that this is not the big afghan news of the week), but I'm feeling a lot of love towards my friends these days.

Of course, there's some bias in saying this in a newsletter from me that you signed up to get, because one thing I appreciate about friends is appreciation for my writing. Oh well, self-centeredness is the human condition. And as long as you appreciate my writing...
 

As always, my two most recent columns. Last week I wrote about a small ailment I seem to have accrued, and call tell you that The Game's A Foot. Oh well. I've always said, I write a pedestrian humor column.

This week marks the return of Dr. Manners, the politeness expert and advice columnist beloved by some. But not by all -- Thanks, Mom, for your kind note letting me know that you are not a fan of Dr. Manners. We here at the Institute For Mannerology appreciate your feedback. 

And lastly, since I know that many people reading this newsletter may not always have time to click through and read the most recent columns, this would be an excellent time for you to peruse some of my Berkshire Eagle columns over the past few months. Not only because there were a few that I'm quite proud of, but because there is a dire need for clicky. (As opposed to Jr. High, which was way too cliquey already.)
 

I guess back to school is around the corner, which I imagine is greeted with a combination of excitement and trepidation, which I am used to seeing from Debbie when I tell her I have a great idea for dinner. Obviously parents who enjoy having literally any free time at all (or who enjoy not taking out a second mortgage for daycare) might appreciate having the kiddos occupied by something educational for six hours a day. And on the other hand, covid still exists, and monkeypox may soon exist a lot harder, and mass shootings, and isn't this supposed to be a humor letter? Anyway, school season is certainly a change in the world, and as the days continue to blur together, I guess it's useful to have occasional seasonal shifts (especially if the climate's so screwed up that you can't rely on weather).

I sure don't miss school. I miss college life with a group of friends all within a stone's throw. (although how friendly are you if you're constantly throwing stones at them?) But the actual school part was not my favorite. I especially don't miss having a writing assignment on something that you don't understand, which I haven't had in decades, until one of my favorite clients asked me to take on an assignment on a topic I was wholly unqualified for. I told him that I was the wrong person for the job, but he liked my writing enough to ask me to do it anyway, and so I tried. But boy, did I find it difficult. I've been hoping to convince him to give the job to a friend of mine, yet unless/until he decides to do so, I've sworn to get the job done because professional pride. (By which I mean, I will get the job done, and I will have sworn a lot.)(also that I would rather this was written by a group of business lions.)

Thankfully, my latest jobs have been a better fit for me, writing a speech and a few poems, including a commission for an old friend whose email I need to reply to after I send out this newsletter.
 

I remember a summer camp song that went "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold." Well, my opportunity (and frankly, enthusiasm) for making new friends these days may be slim, but I'm certainly appreciating the second half. A website where you keep in touch with old friends is an aurum forum.

Hmm, that rhymes but it's not funny. Howabout, I just received a scroll saying "Dear Occupant, why not come to the Center of Rome next week," but I threw it away because it was just a forum letter.

Hmmmm... not sure about that one either. I'd have liked it to be funnier. I'd have liked it to be more inspired. I'd have liked to work in a joke about "This August House" or something about Augustus, given the month. I'd have liked to have written a shorter newsletter, but I didn't have time, so this is all just spewing out as a ramble.

Beware the March of I'ds.

Thanks for reading, and we'll be back in two weeks with more columns from this doric.

Putting the "Vale" in Valediction,
Seth