I haven’t been the same since I lost Zane. Which is OK because I was a fool then. I’m probably still a fool, but a little quieter.

I’m going to let these guys talk for me from now on. They can also change the toilet paper rolls from now on.

Fools of toilet paper. Fools of tile and grout. Fools of cats named Pico and Fools of cats named Trout.

Falstaff was the fool that helped Henry the IV become Henry the V.

Lear’s Fool knew better than the King himself where love and truth overlapped and where they parted.

My friend Peter Friederici wrote a book about not so much changing the narrative but changing from narrative to dramatic story. Narratives are plotted and finished. If the Climate story is a narrative, we know how it ends. Tragedy means we had a choice in the way of our fate, buta tragic flaw means that we cannot escape our fate, even if there was a moment for the tide to turn. A drama conspires with the audience. What they know matter to the story. The Greek Chorus helps them participate. Comedy, even more so, “holds that any people can find agency” (127).

Moments of foolhardiness can be real mistakes–tapping someone on the butt to say, ‘go get ’em’ might feel like abuse. Staying out instead of coming home. Walking in high heels. Telling that joke. Talking too loud. Saying it’s all going to be OK. Saying that it’s not. Letting your kid take the bus. Making your kid take the bus. Driving 8 hours to see your family. Saying you don’t believe in: therapy, drugs (they don’t work), alcoholism, trucks, phones, chicken broth, grades, human evolution (aka, humans are done), water buffalo versus wildebeests, the singularity, makes you a fool. But you have to draw the line somewhere. Take a stand. Overmother your own mother. Take your medicine that you don’t believe in. Make some pies.

Happy Thanksgiving, cats and fools.