I Am Not Happy at This...

“There are still lofty dreams, meager desires, and still sillyness.”

— Minutemen, “Situations at Hand”

[Yes, Minutemen spelled "sillyness” with a “y” and who am I to correct the mighty Minutemen?]

Way back when our son Chris was a toddler, he took to saying “Are you not happy at me?” (or sometimes “Are you happy at me?”) when he sensed that we weren’t, in fact, happy “at” him.

To be clear, I am not happy at the results of last week’s election. I have thoughts about it, and definitely feelings about it, but I’m not going to go there for now. However, I am a firm believer that making art, whatever your art happens to be, is one way of dealing with what’s going on around you, so if there is an upswing in the number of entries here, that’ll just be me making what I guess could sort of qualify as my art.

As always, you’re welcome to follow along and interact, either in the comments section here of, if you’d like, by email ([email protected]).

And while I’m not going to get into it for now, I reserve the right to make this space a forum for the people and things I probably will not be happy at during the next four years.

I had a dream, I think it was last Wednesday night. It was about the election. There were well-known people in this dream. It was ugly and apocalyptic and I’m going to leave it at that, for now.

Fortunately, I had a better dream last night, and I’m going to write about it now. Because it’s going to be just as important to focus on positive, life-affirming moments in the coming years as it’ll be to make our displeasure about the awfulness known.

So here’s the dream:

Donna, Jimmy, Chris and I were in New York City. We ducked into a gift shop on Times Square and proceeded to acquire a bunch of souvenirs.

When we were ready to check out, we noticed that the gift shop cashier was none other than Blondie lead singer Deborah Harry. As a casual fan of this particular new wave diva, I was pleased.

When it came time to ring up our items, my family stepped outside, apparently so I could speak with Debbie for a few minutes. We had a pleasant conversation. I got the impression that Debbie Harry didn’t need this cashier gig, but that she sat in at the register for a few shifts a week, just to say hi to NYC visitors.

Eventually our conversation wound down and it was time for me to leave. However, I had purchased so many New York City knick-knacks that I wasn’t sure how I was going to carry them all. Debbie Harry resolved the situation by dumping them all in a washing machine, which she then flattened, and which I wheeled out into Times Square. Meanwhile, Debbie began talking to an older couple, and eventually walked off with them.

After leaving the shop, I found Donna, Jimmy, and Chris. We began walking up Times Square, which had transformed into a leafy, tree-lined avenue, toward our hotel.

As we were walking, I expressed my regret that I didn’t get a chance to tell Debbie Harry that I saw the last Blondie concert in the 1980s, at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium on August 21, 1982. I also didn’t get a chance to show here the photo (see above) taken at that show, that I found much later. Donna essentially said not to worry about it, at least I got a chance to talk to her. And we continued walking to our hotel.