You may have heard that a University of Georgia professor resigned on the spot when one of his students refused to wear a mask properly.

The professor, Irwin Bernstein, was a “retiree-rehire,” who had officially retired in 2011 but has been teaching on a part-time basis.

I can’t blame him for deciding, at 88 years old, that life is too short to argue with an undergraduate about masks. And I certainly can’t blame him for attempting to enforce a mask mandate in his classroom due to the ongoing threat of death.

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I love Elton John. Love, love Elton John.

I have many happy memories from childhood, adolescence, and throughout my adult life that involved Elton John’s music. I’ve listened to his songs on repeat, sung them at family gatherings, and even performed them onstage. I have the utmost respect for Elton’s musical talent (not to mention that of his longtime collaborators).

And yet, I can’t say that I’ve heard every single song in his catalog, or even every album. And in truth, some of Elton John’s songs make me cringe. Some are even terrible.

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Being Gen X is funny. There are so few of us.

I grew up on Baby Boomer culture—the music, the TV ads, the general worldview—and now find my life dominated by the culture of Millennials (no thanks, Mark Zuckerberg, for Facebook) and Gen Z. The rules are changing fast, and my generation is not the one that is changing them.

It’s fascinating to watch top athletes like Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles (both Gen Z) decide to do what they want instead of what’s expected of them.

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Experts I’ve talked to have delicately suggested that I stop sharing new articles here every day.

“You could write just a few that are targeted to the exact problem you solve for your prospective customer,” they say. “And then you can link to those on social media.”

Yes, that is a very tidy way to do business. But that’s not what this blog is for.

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I recently returned to Instagram after some time away.

I generally dislike social media, but after months of pandemic life, I really missed those casual connections with friends and the glimpse into their lives afforded by the platform.

Everything was going fine — “fine” meaning that I was able to view others’ posts without going too far down the rabbit hole — when I downloaded a routine update.

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