Eye-Yi-Yi

This morning I decided to watch Fox News’ Sunday program in full because, you know, CNN and NBC and other networks are focusing way too much on Libya and Syria, and I needed more than strong tea to begin my day.

I’d rather hear slams against “Obamacare” and more innuendoes regarding Barack Obama’s birth certificate because, you know, those discussions are far more important than world peace/stability or finding ways to create those ever-illusive jobs than anything else to fix a struggling economy. I find the time spent listening to complainers who do nothing else than bash the current administration a refreshing waste of my wakeup routine.

I have a question that has been asked very seldom. Is Chris Wallace really the son of Mike Wallace? Honest. What happened to Chris? Could his defection into faux news be the initial cause of Mike Wallace’s public admission of depression?

In other news, I was MIA yesterday with nary a stop-by to post a music video. Other than an issue with one of my eyes, I was remiss in checking in. This is a daily blog, after all, with no pinch-hitter to fill in when I’m otherwise occupied. I had to call in sick to myself to have a day off. Following that stressful experience, I was too busy bumping into walls and blurring my vision with steroid eye drops to think clearly.

The culprit of the malaise must have been my attempt to read the New York Times obit on Elizabeth Taylor. Reading such tiny print must have triggered a chronic, complicated eye condition. It’s been ages since I have read an actual newspaper. A tactile experience indeed. Memories of days past when print ink made one’s hands a tad dirty and print-shop aromatic felt like I was touching a relic from another time.

The obit was extraordinary, by the way. Let’s hope it will be a while before the NYT’s has to print another gigantic tribute to a legend from any milieu that tempts my old-time feelings to read anything that isn’t on a screen of one sort or another.

What has become of many of us who once chose real books, paper-based news, non-digital photos over computer downloads/kindles, etc.? Not only has age changed former habits, but the trend toward battery/electronic-based reading of everything from fiction to editorial opinion is both easy and poignant.

With the exception of Manhattan, does anyone cozy-up on Sunday mornings with their local newspapers while having coffee and a bagel or Danish anymore? It requires having the time and patience to cull through pages upon pages of information and advertisements while folding and unfolding pertinent sections of interest. How exhausting!

It’s simpler to click through websites with one flash of a finger, isn’t it? For one who chose to only write her journals and letters with high-end ink cartridge calligraphy pens, the shift to keyboards/pads has been too smooth. What happened to the person who related to feather pens, parchment, wax-enclosed and crested correspondence?

I don’t send real cards for holidays and birthday greetings anymore, either. I send eCards. At one time choosing the most unique hand-made card to send to a special friend or relative was one of my signature communication styles. Now, the inside of a card shop is as foreign to me as wearing a veil over my face in public.

Hey! That’s a great idea for those who aren’t ageing gracefully and have not yet sold their face to fillers and surgery. If only the women of the West would get on board with Middle East tradition! Or, if only women of a certain age anywhere could allow their newly discovered post-menopause facial hair to grow out into the mustaches and beards men use to cover their sagging jowls and wrinkled upper lips! Take that, plastic surgery!

Mother Nature again shows her testy side as humans age by removing half of the hair on men’s heads and putting it in their ears and noses, and on the chins and upper lips of women. Yuck, I tell ya’. Yuck!

Now, where was this post going? Odd transition - from Fox News to the hair on one’s chinny-chin-chin. In retrospect, the connection might not be that far off. One day one of their hosts might huff and puff too much and blow the whole network down.