Two things, Mark. Thanks kindly for bothering to check out some of my other work. I'm a prolific writer. Your first comment to me left me wondering whether to respect your viewpoint. I read it, several times, because at least when a commenter doesn't specifically write to do harm I do indeed entertain all manner of varying and to use your word, "irritating" ideas. I've also written rather extensively on that idea, but I think you're new to Medium and to my material. The original piece to which you left me a comment including the phrase "pyrrhic victory" didn't seem to take into account the very clear differentiation that I make between a sometimes widely differing point of view offered with respect, which is where I get to grow, and a comment that is in every single way meant to eviscerate the author. The latter is where I draw the line. The grey area which holds differing points of view is where we grow and evolve. I am VERY clear on this, and have no issue whatsoever holding sometimes deeply uncomfortable ideas in midair for consideration. As someone who has traveled very broadly (and a week from today head back to Africa for the eighth time), differences delight me. What does not, and what I have finally had to stop, are intolerant, abusive comments from people whose sole purpose appears to be to hurt. Jessica Wildfire wrote a very smart piece on that very thing this morning.
You are clearly bright and well educated, Mark. I love someone who possesses the wherewithal to use fifty dollar words in their comments and can actually spell, which on some sites is an increasing rarity. Better yet, you did some wandering. I offer that courtesy to people whose material can set my teeth on edge; I look at other work of theirs to see if my impressions are correct or if that article is an outlier, or if I am willfully misunderstanding due to circumstances purely of my own. All that is work, and it's also work most folks these days don't offer. For what that does is allow for Dear Reader to be either wrong, or misguided, or uninformed. GASP.
To your point about your cats. NPR did a story a while back about where and how doctors die. At home, they said. Not only is that very telling, it's damned good advice. Here's that article: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/06/413691959/knowing-how-doctors-die-can-change-end-of-life-discussions
I also scanned your "stupid small talk questions" and nearly lost my shit laughing. I have been on and off Match.com for years. I don't suffer fools lightly. So you will understand why when some wag sent me a note exhorting that 'BLUE IS MY FAVORITE COLOR" I fell off my desk chair and hurt myself. I've also written a lot about online dating, which, between my propensity to injure myself riding spicy horses in Kazakhstan (I broke my back) and my experiences with Bad Online Profiles Offering Me Dead Fish, you can understand why I have plenty of humor material.
Most readers decide someone's character by reading a Tweet or a single article. That kind of simplistic thinking has led us, in part, to where we are today as a national of ignorant, angry, judgmental fools. I do my fair share of time in all three categories, which also gives me comedy fodder. We all too often want to categorize using simplistic measures, which doesn't allow for the reality that nothing is truly black and white, but billions of subtle shadings of grey. But again, Mark, that takes work.