look before you leap...

2016...a leap year...extra day...now, if this happens to be your birthday...yea!...go you!...unless you're on the other side of 50...then maybe stick with march 1st...but seriously...an extra day of february...ah, that monthly commuter ticket thanks you...an extra day of winter...your dry skin thanks you...but an extra day of campaigning...no one thanks you...well, can't speak for all of you...but for me...i am done...i was really done when it started...and you cannot get away from it...because for the three media seconds that are not spent on the election...you get to hear about kanye's broke ass or another slashing in the big apple...or maybe it'll be winter storm "we didn't catch this one on the radar so you're stuck inside for three fucking days watching the weather channel and candidate debates"...yes, i am done with political promises, non-political assurances and analysis from pompous pundits...i moved to nassau county almost four years ago...with a tax structure that would make ponzi blush...and now this corrupt county had to hire a compliance chief...yes, another salary...for someone to literally oversee and babysit elected officials...oh, don't get me started...it's bottoms up folks...if it stinks at the bottom it rises to the top...ah, leap year...what we all really need is a leap of faith...and not the kind packaged for our consumption at the top...no, just the kind that helps us get out of bed in the morning...to keep trying to fight the good fight...raise our kids to care in a very unforgiving, and uncaring world...and catch them when they forget to look before they leap

what's love got to do with it....

several days ago...as i navigated through the costco parking lot...two days after yet more snow on long island...i observed the masses heading for the store entrance...having been deprived of bulk food shopping for 24 hours...looking like the walking dead...and then i heard yet another radio ad for valentine's day...and thought about it...someone once said to me years ago...it's just a hallmark holiday...and there is some truth to that statement...after all...what better way for retail to recoup the losses of january's Christmas returns...and i also remembered...not too fondly...the times when after struggling only weeks earlier to secure new year's plans...there i was again...hoping for more than a night of bad pre-cable tv on valentine's...that double punch if it fell on a saturday...flash forward and i was the mom buying packaged cards filled with disney princesses...crayons and markers...the deep desire for acceptance buried in each little card's catch phrase...and as we would pack them in a backpack i thought...lord, what's love got to do with this?...paper and chocolate dictating your worth...yesterday, i was at the register in macy's...and the salesgirl was joking with her co-worker..."just give me a date for valentine's, hell i don't care if we break up the next day"...i smiled at her and joked that valentine's and new year's were like the prom revisited each year...and she laughed in agreement...but somewhere deep inside she'd meant it...and i looked at her and thought...in the name of love?...not...screw you godiva!