Category: Potpourri
It's been a rough week; we're having leftovers.
I am taking up the ukulele. I’ve already bought it, so don’t try to talk me out of it. I realize that I am already supposed to be learning a musical instrument. The guitar, to be specific. But I have not picked up a guitar since it got packed away when we first got bedbugs, and the thought of playing it right now brings me no joy. I specifically bought a ukulele to get out of my head musically. Because no matter if I get “good” at guitar, I’ll never get great. And if I really want to be honest—that is the only thing I want when it comes to the guitar.
Like hundreds of millions of other young people, I wanted to make the guitar cry and sing. I wanted to rock. To wail. To shred. I dreamt of becoming the next Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or one of the other guitar gods who go by the diminutive of James. I never wanted to be Eddie Van Halen (RIP) because his guitar was ugly and he grinned when he played. I mean, he was amazing, but he just didn’t have the insouciance that I felt a guitar hero really needed. Prince could smile when He played, but He was God.
Bow down before His Royal Badness
With the ukulele, I have no desire to be one of the great ones. I do not even care about becoming one of the good ones. I will settle for becoming one of the proficient ones. I just want to be able to play some songs and maybe pick out a little song of my own.
Writing and performing a song is the first one of my challenges, and I do not think that the path to me writing a song right now is not through the guitar. I think it is through the fun, approachable, goofy ukulele. (Or maybe a MIDI controller) Permission to give me a wedgie when you next see me.
As a big man, I solemnly swear that I will emphatically not be wearing any Hawaiian shirts.
I am never sure exactly what this blog is about, but new beginnings are one of its themes. Longtime readers will know that I am always seeking a career for the second half of my life. I have not found said career, but I have definitely found one that I am not pursuing.
Not Jennifer. Not the actual haircut.
Jennifer has been threatening to shave her head since the early days of the pandemic. She has very pretty and voluminous hair that refuses to go gray—lucky! But it is baby fine and lank and lays upon her in a way that annoys her and makes her feel hot and pressed in upon. And when it gets to a certain length it starts to break because of how thin it is.
She declared, “Enough.” She bought a barbering kit and told me that I was cutting her hair or that she was shaving it off. I very much believe that one’s body is one’s own and that if Jennifer wishes to shave her hair, I fully support her in it. Having shaved mine a couple of times, I also know that it will end in tears, so I acceded in my new barbering/hairstylist role.
Jennifer found a very simple WikiHow article on how to cut someone’s hair by using two ponytail holders as a guide. It looked simple enough. I gave the article a cursory glance and promised myself that I would give it my full attention before I cut Jennifer’s hair. (I did not.) We decided to do it last Saturday, but through mutual ADHD-related shenanigans, we ended up moving the cut to Sunday.
On Sunday, I found out that my favorite uncle was in the emergency room with COVID-19. He had been diagnosed earlier in the week but began having labored breathing the night before. Around the time that he was being checked in was when we were going to do the cut. I looked at the instructions again.
Technically, I did look at them. My open eyes did cross them for a second or two. Whether any of the information succeeded in taking purchase in my brain remains to be seen. (It did not.) At this point I should have said to Jennifer:
It’s Sunday so I haven’t taken Adderall today.
I looked at but did not comprehend the instructions.
My uncle is sick with COVID and I cannot focus on anything right now.
Can we try it later when I have my full powers of focus?
Anything that let her know that my full attention was not available should have been uttered. Instead, I said, “Okay, Bebe—let’s cut your hair!”
Well, I cut it all right. A good two or three inches more than I was supposed to and in a series of diagonals. It looked worse than you are imagining. Jennifer asked me what I thought it looked like, and I said I did not know, and she said, “Once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it—Throw Mama From the Train.”
I gasped.
She was right.
Grounds for divorce in 43 states and Guam.
Jennifer did not immediately burst into tears, but I most certainly would have. She retired to the bathroom with the scissors and the mirror and was able to mostly even it out. It went from “baby found the scissors” to “life in a women’s prison is hard on your hairdo” in a few minutes. It actually looks like it was done on purpose now. I apologized profusely. That I was sorry my attention was not on my work, and that I should never have picked up scissors while so distracted and worried. She knows the man she married and forgave me for making her look like she had been given a haircut with a Weed Whacker. I most emphatically will not be going to barber college.
Please keep my uncle in your thoughts. For those of you that pray, please put my Uncle John Noah on your prayer list. He was supposed to be leaving the hospital today, but he has had a rough time of it and his recovery is going to take longer than any of us would like.
My friends, we are not finished with Coronavirus. A few months ago I introduced y’all to my little sister, Jessica. She’s loyal, warm, smart, funny, and, according to her, our mom’s best-looking child:
True story. When I post selfies, Facebook asks me to tag her in them. Even with a beard.
She is an ICU nurse and has been exposed to Coronavirus for months.
Would you like to tag Jeremy D. Nichols in this photo?
On Wednesday she tested positive for Coronavirus.
She wears the best PPE and is exceedingly careful. She goes to work and to home and the grocery store maybe once a month, and she still got it. And yet people are acting like nothing is happening. Like 200,000+ people aren’t dead. Eating indoors at restaurants without masks. Not wearing masks at all. Wearing them under their noses (dicknosers) or on their chin (chin maskers) or my favorite, on their necks (goiter warmers). I want to strangle these fools. They are the reason we cannot go back to normal. And they are the reason that my baby sister is sick.
So far she is doing fine. It seems to be a mild case. No fever. A bit of congestion. Let us hope and pray that it stays that way. Please keep Jessica in your thoughts and prayers.
I hope that I have good news next week—that my beloved family members are on the mend. Or as my Grandpa Noah used to say, “I hope they are haired up and healed over soon.”
In some good news, our apartment has been declared bedbug-free, and we are able to unpack our life again. Phew.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Drop me a line: jeremydnichols@toolatesmart.org
Follow me on Twitter: @jeremydnichols
Follow me on Instagram: @germynickels
My PayPal: PayPal for Jeremy Nichols
Discord server: Too Late Smart Newsletter Server
Serious things first: my thoughts are with your family for a speedy recovery.