Shakespeare summed it up in a lot of stuff. We had to wade through some of it when there were still books and stuff at Washington and Lee before they changed the second part of the name. The football team is undefeated this year, which is not what it was when I was there, so there may be some fun activity in town if they do well in the regionals. One of the plays we had to sit through in Honors English before that got changed last year. There was a line that has stayed with me, both in the title and in the observation featured in one of the click-baits this morning: “The fool thinks he is wise, while the wise man knows he is a fool.”

He was a guy, of course, but I think some things are universal, you know? 

That sums up both sides of what Kristina and I found on the picnic table when we rolled over from the George Mason Quad where we stay to get away from the Boomers at the Socotra HQ.

Kristina is a nice girl, just turned eighteen and starting on this legal thing that I am wrapping up while I apply to a decent school, maybe here in town, if I can afford it. I am hoping the resume bullet of working for the international influencer and publishing concern of Socotra House Publications. Or at least hope it sounds something like that. The way the Boomers yammer about all those old wars- even back to pre-history in Vietnam- it might be useful as like a history sub-specialty.

I’m Melissa, BTW, and hoping it works. The Boomers were all agitated last night. They seemed all alert when they heard that the President- the one with 68 days to go in the chair- had just authorized the Ukrainians to launch long-range strikes with the MGM-140 Tactical Missile Systems we just gave them. Apparently Mr. Putin said such use would be an “act of war,” not by Mr. Zelenskyy but by us. Then they went to bed, saying that if anything went off in the night I should wake them up. 

 Like I am going to stick around here for the end of the world. I will be over in Clarendon at the Ballroom since those cute guys from the ROTC unit seem to be hanging out there. They are a little like Eddie and Rick, but those two have their own thing going, but the age is right and that crowd is relativley fit and look ready to dance.  It also helps remind me that the Boomers hanging around here moaning about their time on the high seas were actually young one time and might actually have been worth spending some time with.

That happens a lot here. I was tired and not ready for an atomic holocaust before the working week, which had me generate two of the morning feature stories last week. It is kind of fun, since I can worry about the atomic strikes since the Pentagon is only six minutes away on the Fifteen Minute County stream if I take the scooter. It makes up for the two hours I give them each day to fill out the time for pre-law seminars at George Mason. 

I will be done with that after the Holidays, and can worry about applying to school if I can figure out a way to afford it. The bachelor’s degree was hard enough and I need to figure out a way to afford something decent. Georgetown would be great, since it is an easy commute but it runs about a hundred thousand a year for the JD program and UVA isn’t much different even though it is in state. 

So, I need to figure something out and I keep hoping the Boomers will figure out something to say that actually is worth selling and I can slice off a chunk to get my life started. 

I could crash here when the Quad eligibility runs out, but it is all in a tumult since my plan to have the whole college bill forgiven due to the value of my education to the legal system is a little off the rails. 

 Burt I can worry about that next year, you know? The Boomers claim there is going to be something like a game show the old President who is new again used to run and then there will be some real activity in the local real estate and schools stuff in the transition of people living around the Big Pink building where the Headquarters is located. 

The Boomers were excited when they found out this is the 61^st anniversary of the first push-button telephone, which surprised me, since this is only the twentieth one for all of me and nineteen for Kristina, so we put that in the “too hard” category like that stick-thing in the utility truck the Boomers use to go to the 151 club across town. 

So, considering one of the prime targets for the end of civilization is only nine minutes away, I am going to grab some lunch at Bob and Edith’s Diner over on Columbia Pike. They have been in business almost as long as you could just poke your phone to talk to someone and the restaurant is on that little dip down to the west which means some of the blast is likely to just go over the place in case things get out of hand before the seminar back up at George Mason this afternoon. It’s about Public Health, which I hope might get fixed before I need it like the old guys.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow or sometime if the Boomers get their act together. It hasn’t happened in a while, so it is completely in the spirit of things, you know? TTFN!

–       Melissa

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