Gary Lerude

March 13, 2021

The Sun, Clouds, Trees

This morning, the rising sun caught an assortment of puffy clouds, illuminating their white against the light blue sky, a beautiful contrast to the neighbor's bare trees. You'll find the photo here, since I haven't figured out how to embed a photo in a HEY World post, assuming that is possible. Although breezy, the morning felt mild — ...
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March 12, 2021

A Year Later

A year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and the day he signed the coronavirus relief bill into law, President Biden gave his first address to the nation, blending empathy, caution, and hope for the future. His tone was serious and largely soft spoken. Occasionally, he leaned on the podium to emphasize a ...
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March 11, 2021

Growing A Beard

Inspired by the salt-and-pepper beard worn by Craig Foster in the film My Octopus Teacher, I haven't shaved in over a week. However many days so far in this experiment, I am trying to withstand the itchiness and scruffiness while learning to trim the beard, hoping to end up with a respectable facsimile of my goal.
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March 10, 2021

Another Birthday, One Day It Will Be Otherwise

Tuesday, March 9 After so many years, birthdays are routine annual events, just another day in the 365 days that fill the calendar. To write that exposes one of the paradoxes of living: life is normal, even boring, until it isn't. Only then we remember the miracle of each breath, each blade of grass, the sun that gives us daylight and ...
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March 9, 2021

Feelings

I don’t believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or to make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel. — Gloria Naylor What do I feel? Do I even know, since I grew up internalizing various messages about downplaying feelings: Men should be stoic, unperturbed by life's events. With constant happiness ...
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March 7, 2021

To Thine Own Self Be True

As I approach another milestone birthday — aren't they all milestones? — I'm grateful to be at a stage in life where I don't feel I have to prove myself. My life has forged my values and brought self-confidence as I have navigated the challenges and achieved some successes, yielding a sense of security and an increasing fondness for th...
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March 6, 2021

Masks and Personal Freedom

This week Governor Greg Abbott of Texas announced the state's mask mandate will end March 10, saying citizens "no longer need government running our lives." Yet, in a subsequent interview with KTRK TV in Houston, he said, "We are still urging people to continue to wear the mask." I've been surprised that masks became and remain such a ...
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March 6, 2021

Vaccinated

I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday afternoon, 28 days after the first dose per Moderna's guidelines. Because of my age, I'm in the 1b group. After the shot, the rest of the day was normal, and I went to bed around 10:00. I awoke shortly after 2:00, and couldn't get back to sleep for a couple hours. Initially, I ...
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March 5, 2021

Hey!

While I doubt that an interest in writing can be encoded in the genes, for some other reason I have been captivated — I don't think that's too strong — by writing and publishing most of my life: • Helping my mother with the hand typed newsletter for her Soroptimist club. • Preparing the newscast from the AP news wire when I worked the ...
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