Somebody described a nice encounter with David Letterman, who had a segment on his Late Night show about celebrity encounters called “Brush with Greatness.”
My celebrity encounters include talking to Jackie Chan in L.A., interviewing Gary Burton in a promotional video for Berklee College of Music, meeting Pete Buttigieg in Boston, being on stage in Spamaloton Broadway (with Clay Aiken and other cast members singing to me), and getting winked at by Art Buchwald at the Washington D.C. airport in the early 70’s.
Do you see any celebrity encounters in the images I’m sharing today?
I love my daily celebrity encounters with the Daily Bitch calendar.
Here’s the Spamalot celebrity cast I saw on Broadway in 2008:
Thanks to all the celebrities who are encountering this blog, here and now, including YOU.
My careful husband Michael, who is all that I could wish for, likes to say, “Be careful what you wish for.”
If you wish for a careful definition of that statement, here‘s one:
(be) careful what you wish for — idiom
Definition of (be) careful what you wish for
—used to tell people to think before they say that they want something and to suggest that they may not actually want it
You think having twins would be fun? Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
Over the past few months, I’ve often wished for
more time at home,
the chance to relax, and
major changes in the current political situation.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m getting what I wished for. I guess I should have been careful.
I want to be careful in explaining what I’m currently wishing for, because it might sound bad. I’m wishing that if I had been tested for COVID-19 (which my doctors unsuccessfully wished for and asked for) when I was briefly hospitalized with fevers earlier this week, I would have tested positive.
Why am I wishing for THAT? Because
I’ve been self-quarantining, so I know I’ve done my best to reduce the spread,
I’d be immensely relieved to know that I survived the pandemic unscathed despite being in the major risk categories (age and underlying health issues), and
Whether or not Dr. Salem wishes to be quoted in this blog, he often is. Here is an excerpt of his email to me this week after my release from the hospital:
It is criminal that we have not been able to test. It is really good to hear that you are better since anyone that has the illness and recovers should now be immune.
It looks like Dr. Salem also wishes that I would have tested positive for the illness, if testing had been available.
Be careful what photos you wish for, because you might get these:
Be careful what you wish for if you wish to eat pasta every day, because that’s what we’ve got!
For those of us who wished to see more of Mayor Pete Buttigieg this year, we got this …
It looks like Pete, a huge Star Trek fan, got what he wished for his first time guest hosting an American late night TV show.
Here‘s part of the classic be-careful-what-you-wish-for Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough at Last”:
What I wish for now includes (1) comments and (2) the opportunity to express my gratitude for all who help me create these daily blog posts, including YOU!
A few hours after I published Day 2529: What could possibly go wrong? yesterday, I noticed that somebody had written “What could happen” on the group room whiteboard:
What could and did happen is that somebody could use a marker that is hard to erase:
What could happen is that I turned my cleaning that whiteboard into a mindfulness exercise for me and the group members.
What could happen after that is that the group could talk about values (among other things).
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What could happen next (and a lot happened) is documented in the rest of my photos from yesterday.
What could happen is that one of those photos could get many likes on Facebook and another one could get even more likes, even though neither of them have any caption.
What could happen is you could guess what those two photos are, I could share some music ,
and I could give thanks for everything, including YOU!
While I wouldn’t go so far as to fake my own death, I definitely avoid small talk whenever I can. Personally, I prefer talk about medium and big topics.
Today, I don’t have time for too much talk of any size on this blog, because I need to rush off to the second of two retreats this weekend where I get to talk with and about other group therapists, who loom very big in my mind.
Also, I have big feelings about even small time changes, so I’m doing my best to adjust to gaining an hour while also losing Daylight Savings Time. No matter how much I talk about this, these time changes don’t seem to change. (Although I believe that U.S. Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has talked about getting rid of these disruptive time changes.)
Do my other photos from yesterday have a little faith?
I have a little faith that when I randomly and intuitively take photos every day, they will somehow fit together in my next blog post.
Have a little faith that Michael’s cooking tastes even better than it looks. When I first met Michael, exactly nine years ago today, I had a little faith that we were meant for each other.
Speaking of anniversaries, yesterday was an anniversary of the big success of “Faith” by George Michael.
I have a little faith that you will leave a comment, below.
Have a little faith that I’ll end this post with gratitude for all, including YOU!
Last night, at Boston’s beautiful Colonial Theater, Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg observed that a synonym used for “candidate” is “hopeful.” Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg then observed how appropriate that was, because a political candidate should have and inspire hope for the future.
I was very hopeful, last night, after listening to Presidential hopeful Buttigieg speak and answer questions from the audience, including a question about what his dogs were wearing for Halloween. I am hopeful I am correct when I report that one of Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s dogs is dressing up as an avocado for Halloween.
I am hopeful this clears up any doubts about my memory:
I found that hopeful photo online, after searching for “Buttigieg Halloween avocado.” Presidential hopeful Buttigieg’s dogs — Truman and Buddy Buttigieg — have a twitter account, and hopeful comments in response to that photo included:
Because I had even more resistance to taking photos yesterday than I did the day before, I was floundering about what to call today’s post.
“Floundering” seems right, because:
our leaders are floundering,
our institutions are floundering,
many people tell me they are floundering, and
this is the only photo I took yesterday:
That’s flounder over a peach and ginger flavored coulis with cous cous and al dente vegetables. Michael’s cooking is a good remedy for floundering (although not for the flounder).
Today, I’m going to meet Mayor Pete Buttgieg, who doesn’t seem to be floundering even though he is running a distant fourth to Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders in the polls (and poll results were certainly floundering in our last Presidential election). And speaking of polls, I don’t understand why Cory Booker is floundering with such low polling numbers, either. These days, I’m floundering to make sense of many things.
two retreats about group therapy on Saturday and Sunday.
While looking forward to events in the future can help one feel hope, it can also trigger worry and fears about that future, like “Is this too much?” “Will all these activities next week interfere in my self care?” “Will the absence of the late Walter Becker get in the way of my really enjoying the Steely Dan concert?” “What’s the weather going to be like?” “Am I ready for November?” and “Where the hell am I going to park?”
The cure for future-oriented fears is refocusing on the present moment. And in this moment, I have several new photos to share with you.
To make this my day, my way, I’d like to revisit and clarify one difficult-to-read photo above:
History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
What could happen is that I turned my cleaning that whiteboard into a mindfulness exercise for me and the group members.
I have a little faith that when I randomly and intuitively take photos every day, they will somehow fit together in my next blog post.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 