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Fifth Friday Footnotes, Follow-ups and Far-Flung Fripperies:
• It’s always been true, but never more evident — the world would benefit not from more answers but better questions.
• Can you name a local grocery store with better public bathrooms than Woodfield Station’s Market of Choice?
• Choosing which tasks to complete is not what’s difficult. It’s the choosing against the others that forces us to confront our limits, the consequences of our choices and ultimately our mortality. “Later” allows us to pretend we’ll live forever.
• We’re all strong in mostly the same ways, but each of us is weak in our own unique way. Our frailties are more revealing than our successes.
• People are planning less or more poorly. We’ve all heard the same grocery store cell phone conversation: “Tell me again what you wanted me to pick up….”
• Republicans have so neatly merged politics with entertainment, it’s no wonder an entertainer has been leading its polls.
• Just because there’s nothing for you to do, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing for you to do. Waiting for a response or monitoring a situation is not doing, but it’s also not nothing.
• The Comic News office did not have a public sign, but now I wish it had. It would have displayed its address in a digital clock format: “12:47 Willamette — We’re Right, Twice a Day.”
• It’s hard to answer “what next?” if you haven’t asked “what for?” (And “what if?” is usually less than no help.)
• Of all bigotries, chronological bigotry is the most invisible. We happily undo the past’s mistakes, never considering how many of our own will need undoing later.
• When in doubt, trying ordering whatever is first on the menu. Its position at the top of often a point of pride.
• How can I allow more than just my mind to be boggled?
• You know you’re middle-aged when all your friends — half older than you and half younger — envy how much you can remember.
• “Nonce” should already be a word, if only because you’d never have to be told its meaning — not once.
• Autocorrect fixes our spelling, but is no help with numbers.
• Dear airlines: the more you thank me for choosing you, the more I regret my choice.
• If our mayor and eight city councilors formed a softball team, would every practice and game be constrained by public meeting laws? So much for a Lane County Commissioners bowling team….
• You’re better off not knowing how often elevators pass you by because they’re headed in the wrong direction.
• It says something about you but I don’t what: if you know the FTA abbreviations for more than three airports.
• Rue less.
• When I set a mousetrap, am I hunting or gathering?
• Regret is worrying about something that already happened.
• Isn’t it odd that we describe popularity with catastrophe terminology? His work “blew up,” exploded,” “went viral.” He’s “the bomb.”
• When did we become so enamored with “pods”? Everything from coffee to laundry detergent is meted out in pre-measured pods, our work stations are laid out in pods, our groups are subdivided into pods. Suddenly surrounded by pods, we renew our hope for peas on earth.
• I’m sure there’s a good reason, but why aren’t newspapers flying drones to photograph closed football practices?
• I saw a Hooters restaurant with a take-out window. Explain.
• Whoever named Eugene’s northwest neighborhood “Trainsong” deserves credit for trying.
• Equal is not always fair and fair is seldom equal. We often endorse whatever is easiest to measure.
• We need a few lateralists mixed in with our literalists.
• Sometimes I don’t feel productive so much as quotientive.
• Whenever my home Internet connection goes down, I’m secretly surprised that my toilets still flush.
• When I’m among perfect strangers, I become unnerved mostly by their perfection.
• How do people with unique first names protect their 12-step group anonymity? (“I’m LeBron J. and I’m….”)
• Actions taken matter mostly because they reflect our intents.
• If Hillary Clinton can be given a likability pill, why didn’t the same potion work on Al Gore?
• As we age, we think less about succeeding and more about being succeeded.
• As physical touch becomes less common but not less important, each somatic connection carries more meaning.
• Be keen but kind.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs at www.dksez.com

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