Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Is it possible? When two fabrics are sewn together, it is almost always the case that a seam will appear; but it is the expert seamstress who has the knowledge of the proper stitch, the “tricks of the trade” and the technical knowledge in order to make it appear as if the boundary doesn’t exist, so that the two foreign bodies mesh and meld into one. There may be multiple seams in creating a piece of clothing; […]
Whether the distance was miscalculated, or the area was last visited decades ago as a child, the feeling that the destination is further than once thought — or that one is enmeshed in something that is “above one’s head” — is a disturbing and often distressing feeling. An underlying sense of panic begins to envelope; then, time becomes of the essence, perhaps because the appointment […]
We all “have” one, or at least sense it; and when we do not, it means that the tune to which we march is so coordinated that we don’t even realize that there is one; for, it is only when the song is “out of tune” or the marching footsteps are out of sync that it becomes apparent that the cadence of life is left askew. There are days when the cadence of life is so perfectly attuned that we need not pause to consider it; […]
There is a sadness necessarily attached to such an award: It is an acknowledgement that a person’s worth has come to an end. A life’s end is recognized when such an award is granted, and no one believes that anything further will be attained. It is a dismissive award — a pinning of a goodby […]
That is a rather presumptuous title, one might declare; for, it is always the “we” that others presume to know, as opposed to limiting the declarative within the restrictive confines of one’s self, family and surrounding community. What is the great equalizer that allows for the collective plural pronoun? Is it television (i.e., do “we” all watch the same shows and thus form a conglomerate of a universal consciousness)? There was once a time when one could argue that a unity of convention existed […]
It is always something to look forward to: Whether the regular rhythm of the 2-day, the “extra” delight of the 3-day, and the deliciously unexpected 4-day weekend when the time of rest is doubled and by the end of it, you’d almost forgotten about the frenzy of your day-to-day work schedule. Do we “make up” for sleep? Those so-called experts who claim that loss of sleep, once lost, can never be redeemed, clearly don’t know what they’re talking about. […]
Perhaps it is the remembrances of the Ali-Frazier era, or of one’s own childhood where we suddenly broke out into a melee of rash encounters; or maybe one is timid and never provokes, avoids all hostilities, diverts from any potential conflicts; whatever the background, there are fights that we remember, whether as a spectator or as a participant. […]
We have all experienced the psychology of the cursed “waiting room” — that place which is assigned as the “intermediate” lull, like purgatory for the virtuous-to-be, where they think that by making you believe that you have now been chosen to wait in a separately sequestered area, your patience will become refreshed and you will allow for another lengthy wait. The psychologists have it all figured out, don’t they? […]
What is it about the ascription of such a word, that there can be a direct correlation or, if taken in a different context, some mere connection but no causality? We can say of a person, “He is responsible for X”, and yet never have directly encountered X or (if a person) never even have met X. Thus of monsters and thugs throughout history, for instance, we might say that “Stalin was responsible for 20 million deaths, […]
The trailing ellipsis establishes a pause for reflection, and the finality of three periods for an emphasis upon the irreversible nature of the statement. “And then” connotes that something preceded – a lifetime of activities, a century or less of human historicity involving birth, growth, work, struggles, etc. – existed before the conclusion of the life. The “we are” slice of the sentence implies two additional variables: the universality of involvement – an event that excludes no one […]