Join me on Duolingo (I've been on for a year!)

A day in early May was my first year anniversary trying to learn Spanish on Duolingo. I created my account many years ago, but quickly abandoned it. I'm not sure why, after all these years, I decided to try again. June 20 is supposed to mark the day I have done a lesson every day for a year (though I have often used my earned points to "buy" the weekend off). 

Spanish currently has an introductory set of lessons, followed by 10 more, each marked with a "checkpoint". It took me a year, starting from the very first lesson, to get halfway through checkpoint 4. In the early days, I would often do 10 lessons a day. Now, I do a minimum of three.

Duolingo has a free version - that's the one I use. It's not the greatest way to learn a language from scratch, but if you have taken a class, or classes, in a language in the past, it's a great way to keep your skills up. 

If you use this link to join Duolingo, I get two weeks' access to some special features I would usually have to pay for. If you do use that link, be sure to follow me on your account - I'll do the same for you. 

People who claim grievances more likely to lie and cheat

As summarized by the Genetic Literacy Project:

Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead.

Scholars from the Immorality Lab at the University of British Columbia created a victim-signaling scale that measures how frequently people tell others of the disadvantages, challenges, and misfortunes they suffer. Those who scored higher on this victim-signaling scale were found to be more likely to virtue-signal—to outwardly display signs of virtuous moral character—while simultaneously placing less importance on their own moral identity. In other words, victim signalers were more interested in looking morally good but less interested in being morally good than those who less frequently signal their victimhood.

Just something to think about.

Imperfect piano recitals & unremarkable concerts

I don't remember a time when I DIDN'T want a piano. At 55, I FINALLY got one - in early November 2021, to be exact. A friend was getting another piano and needed to get rid of this one. Found affordable piano movers and, at long last, my dream has come true! 

I've never had piano lessons (which is rather obvious when you listen to me). Thanks to everyone who passed on their kids' long-abandoned how-to-play manuals. I'm posting these videos for my mother and to show you that I have been using your piano books! 

Playing piano calms me. It takes my mind away from the stresses and gut punches of chronic unemployment, of gaining all the weight I lost in 2018 & 2019, and of generally feeling pretty lost these days. 

I'm going to try to upload a video of my playing something on the piano each month for an entire year. I guess it doesn't take much for me to humiliate myself on the Interwebs. Again. Seriously, I'm trying to be brave. I'm trying to show that you don't have to do something well to enjoy it and share it.  

Thank you for watching & liking each video (as in, you literally click "like" on each of them). And if you don't, just move on - there's zero reason to be an ass and say something sh*tty. Zero reason. 

My First Imperfect Piano Recital: Amazing Grace.

An Imperfect Recital for May 2022: Bach, Minuet. This is the six-month mark! 

An Imperfect Recital for April 2022: Simple Gifts.

Happy Birthday for Alex, April 2022.

An Imperfect Recital for March: My Country Tis of Thee... or is it?!

Added bonus: Unremarkable concerts of me singing with my guitar, playing about as well as I do a piano: Act Like a Married Man and Your Cheatin' Heart.  

I upload my imperfect musical performances and unremarkable concerts to this YouTube playlist. 

Men in the USA are Terrifying

I am deeply afraid of angry men in the USA: SO many are armed with multiple guns and see glory and satisfaction and some sort of twisted justice for themselves in murdering people with those guns. Whether it's a man in a car angry that I'm riding a bicycle or an online troll angry at my words: I am afraid.

Also:

if another country had this many mass shootings you would be too afraid to travel there and protest their citizens from immigrating here - Myka Fox on Twitter.

What keywords do I use with this post? Uvalde, Texas? Tops Supermarket in Buffalo? El Paso Walmart? Gabby Giffords? Sandy Hook? Columbine, Colorado? Republicans? GOP? NRA? 2nd Amendment? Children were once fetuses?

Wondering

I've been wondering if I will ever have the opportunity to start a social media post with this phrase, or something like it, ever again:

I am so happy/thrilled and honored to announce that...

It's been a long time. 

To my neighbors & other former friends

Shout out to the neighbors who stood in my backyard in December 2016 and insulted me and said I was being hysterical and that Trump and Hillary Clinton were the same and none of my predictions about the Supreme Court, abortion, immigration and more would EVER come true, as well to the people on Facebook who said I was too political and absolutely ridiculous to be SO worried about any of this. 

And ALSO to all the "we need to come together with the other side" people. 

F*ck you, sincerely & completely. You did this. This is you:

Of course, you'll never admit it. You'll never apologize. That's also why you are .

Goodbye, little bridge

On the viewer's left is the old Spottsville bridge in Henderson County, Kentucky, part of US Highway 60. 

On the right is the new bridge. This view is facing West. The bridges go over the Green River. 

Everyone hates the old Spottsville bridge. It is too narrow. Two American-sized trucks passing on it will hit their driver's mirrors against each other. It's too narrow for a lot of farm equipment, including my cousin's, who had to make an hour's drive out of his way as a result. 

Everyone is excited about the new bridge. 

And I know the old bridge has to go. 

But I cried when I saw this photo. 

I have dreamed of crossing this old bridge on my motorcycle. 

When I approach this bridge, I approach some of the best times of my childhood, and when I cross it, I connect with my family. 

This bridge represents the area where my family is from - Spottsville and Reed. There was a restaurant on the other side of the river of this photo when I was a kid (on the left as you approached going East) and my Papaw would take me there for hamburgers - and they were the BEST hamburgers. Crossing the bridge meant we were going to see my Mamaw's parents, or I was going to stay with my other great-grandmother, Papaw's mother, or that I was going to go spend the day with my cousin Robin. It meant my Mamaw would start telling stories - where her childhood school was, where they lived when they were sharecroppers, and on and on. 

The narrowness of the bridge required everyone to slow down and be careful - which gave you a chance to look at the dam locks on the Green River on one side, and the old railroad bridge on the other (the railroad bridge would turn to allow barges through - leaving scary gaps that you could imagine a train running off in a disaster movie). 

As an adult, I imagined a hike and bike route going all the way from Henderson to this bridge, along US Highway 60, and that restaurant opening back up as a result, maybe another building opening as a little B & B. And people would sit outside and look at that narrow bridge and marvel at it. 

But now, people will speed through the area, never giving any of it a second thought. 

Goodbye, Spottsville bridge. I'll miss you so. 

Here are some photos of, and on, the Old Spottsville bridge.