Refraining and Retaining (Friends)

DURING THE CAMPAIGN, a reporter asked Hillary Clinton: "a lot of people don't like you because they say you're cold, distant, arrogant, unapproachable. how does that make you feel"? Hillary swallowed, then said: "well...its hurts my feelings.....but..I'll carry on....somehow" snif snif.....Now, that's downright funny, a perfect response. the crowd roared. Anyone who hates Hillary is a zombie. For that matter, anyone who hates Donald, as I damned near do, is equally zombie-ish. The key is to have a sense of humor. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore. We are all curled up in our bubbles, self absorbed, and, my oh my, don't we take ourselves oh so seriously? And, we hold grudges.I can't count the number of grudges, primarily from friends I've had for forty years or more, whoa re currently grudging out on me. Damn, it aint my fault they all voted for Trump, and now feel foolish. And I'm starting to wish I hadn't suggested to my new age friend that the Federal Reserve system is neither secretly controlled by a small coterie of reclusive European trillionaires, nor infiltrated by highly advanced extraterrestrials. He wasn't laughing when he gave me this heads up, and maybe I shouldn't have either when I pointed out that there doesn't seem to be any evidence or indications that his assertions bear truth in temporal reality. Maybe, when my right wing friends started forwarding photoshops of Obama's face superimposed upon the body of a chimp, I shoulda laughed. obviously, they did. Or at least I should have refrained from calling them "racists", right? Live and learn.