Elvis Is Everywhere and Other Pre-Pandemic Miscellany (2019)

• The song could so easily have been "Elves Is Everywhere" – Sam Gamgee's theme song – and it could have had the refrain "Elves needs boats, Elves needs boats" (thus explaining the Bermuda Triangle in the process).  We will not speak of the Lórien bots, although that has its own charm.
• The calls to legalize marijuana now always provoke this thought in me: "...because there isn't nearly enough carelessness, incompetence, and sloppy thinking."
• Doesn't the Ursula K Le Guin book (on which a friend's cat is sleeping) look like the The Tombs of Tuan? I like to think of Túan as the undead offspring of Tevildo and Húan.  And that might explain why the cat isn't helping...
• Thinking of S, who died far too soon:
• She loved wearing overalls, for pretty much the same reason her beloved hated them (they are unflatteringly unisex and juvenile)
• Overall, she had a sort of modesty or humility that seemed to reflect a lack of confidence, or even a discomfort with her own gifts (which were many).  
• When she was in grad school, there was a guy in her program who kept telling her "I'm in love!"  She would keep asking him who with, and he would keep replying "With life!"  It was obvious to me and everyone else that he had a crush on her, but she seemed to take his statement at face value and found it very inspirational.  (She was very surprised and chagrined when he finally confessed that she was the object of his affection.) 
• When we were in high school or early college, I remember my dad mentioning once that she'd sent him her resume; he told me he was willing to speak with her, but she'd have to reach out to him.  Why didn't I tell her that?  (She never did reach out to him.)  
• She was given to almost naive enthusiasms, perhaps even self-consciously reveling in her own unabashedness, while she could be quite scornful of enthusiasms she didn't share.
• She had no patience with posers/wannabes.
• I remember several quirks about her beloved, including that he deleted the Minesweeper game on her computer because he couldn't resist playing it.  But they were devoted to each other, and I believe were quite happy together.