1. The pretzel truck. There’s an Auntie Anne’s pretzel truck that periodically appears at the office complex where I work. As far as I’ve been able to determine, it has no fixed schedule. There’s no way of knowing when it might appear. Every day I’m forced to appear at the office in person, I do so in hopes that it will be the courtyard. Far more often than not, those hopes are unfulfilled. It’s honestly just heaping insult on the injury of being required to appear at the office in person to do things done just as well from the living room.

2. Early to bed. The only time I even remotely regret my long-standing preference for an early bedtime is on the rare occasion when there’s a concert featuring a performer I’m determined to see. On days like this, sitting here at 6 PM, when I’d normally be starting to wind down for the event, knowing I would normally have five good hours of sleep in before I’ll even get home this evening, I absolutely wish I were ever so slightly less hard and fast with my routine… Because in all likelihood my eyes are still going to fly open well before 5 AM tomorrow even though there’s no earthly reason I need to. It’s one of the rare moments when my love of routine is a double-edged sword.

3. Donald Trump. I couldn’t possibly care less that the former host of Celebrity Apprentice was invited by the family of a fallen soldier to attend a wreath laying at Arlington. Standing in the cemetery, surrounded by America’s bravest sons and daughters at rest, while grinning foolishly and flashing a “thumbs up” is not just an absurdist photo op, but also a sure sign that neither Trump nor his staff have any sense of decorum, propriety, or how to behave polite society. It’s not a surprise, of course, he’s using the same old, tired playbook. I don’t know why I even had the passing thought that an asshole of such monumental proportions could manage to let the focus fall somewhere other than on him for even a moment.