Dear President Biden,
Do you have someone who checks you over before you go into big meetings to make sure your tie is tied correctly and that your socks match? I’m not asking this because I think you particularly need such a service and definitely don’t mean any disrespect, but I found out today that sometimes such a once over would be helpful, especially ahead of a big day like you have coming up tomorrow.
What is prompting me to raise this rather silly issue? Well, I realized at about 5:30 this evening that I’d been wearing my shirt backwards all day. There’s no tag and there’s no pocket or anything obvious like that, but all day I was feeling a little choky, and kept tugging at my shirt because it was too high on my neck. Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me until my workday was over that it was because the darn thing was on wrong. Thankfully I’m 99% certain it wasn’t apparent to anyone else, which is a really good thing since I, of course, had a big presentation this morning. The presentation went well, but it would be better for my little ego if I’d also been able to dress myself properly. Sigh.
On a cheerier, less silly/pathetic note, I got to observe another very cool nature thing this morning.
There’s a power substation a few blocks away that takes up three blocks north to south and along the west side of the property the city planted hundreds (thousands?) of Shasta daisies and irises. Well, the irises are past their prime and just a few are still hanging in, but the daisies are just getting going. The cool nature thing is that there are little masses of daisies already in full bloom at each of the points where the street tees into the substation. Basically, because there aren’t houses shading them, the ones that happened to be planted where they get a lot more direct sunlight are having a wildly different experience than their neighbors that happened to be planted just to one side or the other of them. It’ll be interesting to see if those early bloomers are also early faders – I’ll try to remember to go by there once a week over the next several weeks to check on that.
I suppose I could try and draw this out into some profound analogy about accidents of birth and how where someone happens to land can mean the difference between getting tons more nutrients and sunshine equivalents, but I think I’ll leave it there (mostly since there’s not really all that much more to say about that that isn’t painfully obvious) and call it a night.
I hope things go well for you tomorrow.
I also hope that Joe/Mitch Manchin has a useful come to Jesus sort of epiphany super soon so that we can all have much better tomorrows than we will likely have otherwise.
May we be safe from scary voter-suppressed tomorrows.
May we be mindful when we dress and give each other grace when we mess up.
May we have the benefit of plenty of sunshine and everything else we need to be healthy and strong.
May we not accept that only those who happen to be born into certain circumstances get the goodies.
Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson
The Biden Letters 