I hope this doesn't piss anyone off. I don't have the emotional bandwidth to be deeply affected by the passing of the Queen. I mean I feel bad for her family but I'm not sad, my first thought was “she had a good run at 96, at least she’s free of pain and reunited with Philip:”  Whenever a celebrity passes I have the same type of  reaction.  A slight feeling for their family but not the rending of garments I see in my timeline.

Whenever anyone of stature passes and my timeline lights up, I wonder what is wring with me.  Not just deaths, but when friends express any strong emotion about a celebrity I feel little if anything.  I guess I need to know you before I have  a strong enough bond to have strong feelings for someone.

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I'm a 53-year-old man who already gets approved when he buys marsala wine. Now I get to look forward to being proofed  to buy whipped cream.

Unfortunately, much like Bele and Lokai from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", their hate for each other might be all they have left.

Got into a conversation about the old ceiling in St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Center. This was the ceiling in the 1980s.

Instead of listening to the sermons, I'd sit in a pew and try to solve the ceiling.

One of my problems is that I tend to overthink things.  In my head, I suspect this question is asking me if I'm a native English speaker, but when I see “professional” I'm thinking, “do I get paid primarily for my English skills?”   I have friends and acquaintances who make their primary living as writers. They make money off their novels, create marketing content, and write television shows, plays and movies. They’ve won awards. They have two hour debates over the use of an Oxford comma. They are professional writers.

When you add in the 260 point chasm between my Math and English  SAT scores from high school I really don't class my English skills as "professional".  I even think I'd be lying if I call my skills advanced. I'm mid-level at best.  I could probably get a B on a regents level High School English class.  I have average skills  so I’d class ,myself as mid-level.

I was filling out a job application for a senior architect position on LinkedIn this evening, and one of the questions I was asked was how many years I've been working in technology. I put in 33 years and it tells me it's an invalid value. Did some testing the largest number you could put it was 29 years.  I seem to have three choices:

1. Lie, which would invalidate my application
2. Track down the company and send an email to their HR department
3. Skip it and move on.