It's time, once again, to visit the wonderful world of Dear Abby. With her pithy pearls of wisdom, sharp-as-a-tack mid-Western humor, and of course that engaging hairdo, she's an icon, the rock against which many of us lean in times of distress and, apparently, complete insanity.
Abby knows best
I'll admit that I read the Dear Abby column just about every day. Why? Because I'm comforted knowing that there are people in the world whose lives are a bigger mess than mine. If I'm having a bad day at work and I pick up a column where "Lori from Dubuque" is complaining that her stepfather from her mom's third marriage won't be able to walk her down the aisle in her upcoming nuptials because he's been incarcerated for jumping bond, but that doesn't matter because she'd rather have her real father do the honors anyway, which obviously will never work since his current wife is the tramp who broke up the marriage in the first place, well that just warms my heart. I mean, I have occasional popping in my ears. Who am I to complain?
I especially like it when someone asks Abby about sex, which is a lot like asking Michael Vick about pet care. Still, everyone loves to read about other people's dreadful sex lives. In a column not long ago, "Sexless in Atlanta" wondered why, since the birth of her child eighteen months ago, she's had "absolutely no desire for sex." This, she said, has put a strain on her marriage, and despite visits to her gynecologist and a therapist for a solution, she and her husband still argue about it.
No sex is good sex
Abby's advice was, cleverly, that the woman should find a new therapist (Translation: Don't ask me, I haven't had sex since the New Deal, and even then it wasn't so great). But what struck me was the problem. See, it wasn't my wife who had difficulty immediately after our children were born. It was me. And that was because I made the mistake of watching my wife give birth.
Any man who steps into that operating room does so at the peril of his sex drive. Once a man has seen what actually happens during childbirth, he's thinking he'd rather go through life with a nonspecific, weepy rash than go through that again. Sure, babies are cute and cuddly, but at the moment of birth they're covered in body fluids that just seem wrong. And they're huge, at least huge for the places from which they emerge. I'll never again underestimate the elasticity of the human body, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, my wife didn't have to watch it, I did. She was in pain of course, something she casually mentioned in rather colorful terms every fifteen seconds during labor, but she was also on her back. I saw it all, and I'm here to say that seeing it all does not provide the same sort of fantasy world as does, say, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
Body fluids
Of course, I've never read Dear Abby for her responses. Anyone who believes that a newspaper columnist dispensing advice in one hundred words or less is actually qualified to do so needs, well, some advice. And I'm not going to talk about my sex life publically, I'll leave that to other correspondents. It's enough to say that our youngest is older now and covered in body fluids of his own making, and I can assure Sexless that, sooner or later, her desire will return -- only to be destroyed by the kids bursting through the bedroom door at midnight.
# # #
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
If it Floats
When your children ask you what you want for Father's Day this year, it's time to cast an adoring gaze on their sweet and innocent faces and say: "Kids, when I see the unconditional love I get from my own family, I realize I have absolutely everything a man could want in this world. That, and a boat, if you can swing it."
Let's face it, unconditional love is a wonderful thing, but it can't go 45 knots on the open ocean while the wind whips at your receding hairline and the salt spray rips your contacts right out of your face as you are reminded of freedoms you recklessly abused in your youth.
And neither can a necktie.
There is nothing like a boat. Not just any boat, and certainly not a boat with sails. Things that are powered by wind are dangerous--anyone who has been to a frat party knows this for a fact.
Big Motors
No, the boat has to have an motor, a big motor, maybe two, that are annoyingly loud and burn more fossil fuel in an hour than a Prius does in a year. It has to be a boat fitted with swivel chairs where you can sit and hook large denizens of the deep that usually turn out to be other guy's line. It has to be a boat your accountant will counsel against buying. And your lawyer, for that matter. It has to be a testosterone-driven boat.
Not that you'd expect your children to buy a boat like that. But you would expect a reaction from your wife, who is standing in the background, ready to pick up clues about what you want for Father's Day. And you'll get it, after the kids are in bed.
"What's this about a boat?" she'll ask. (Translation: Forget the boat.)
"Oh, nothing, just joshing the kids." (Translation: Please, please, please?)
"No, you're not just joshing. You middle-aged men could live in the Kalahari Desert and you'd still want a boat." (Translation: I could have married Richard Smedley. He's a doctor now.)
"No, really, I don't want a boat." (Translation: How about a small boat? And who's middle-aged?)
"Besides, what do you know about boats?" (Translation: A fence post knows more about boats than you do.)
Connecticut River
She would be right, of course. In my case, I grew up in Hartford, where the only place to operate a boat was the Connecticut River. This was back in the days when the river smelled like Times Square on a summer day and oozed forth alien life forms and talk-show hosts. You wouldn't even think of putting a boat in the river back then for fear of falling into the water and worrying that years later you'd produce children that look like Edward Scissorhands. Hence, no one had a boat.
But that was then. Now, I'm a grown-up guy, and as I read in the paper recently, I am apparently at the mercy of my hormones. In fact, I've been told that whenever I drive past a boatyard my nostrils flare and I emit simian-like grunts from beneath my solar plexus. My guess is that deep in the collective unconscious of modern man, we are still, at heart, hunters and gatherers. Of boats.
So when I first thought about buying a boat, I said to myself, "The only way we can do this is if I convince my wife that it will be a safe and wholesome family activity." (Translation: Lie.)
Quiz
I bought some boating safety books and placed them strategically around the house, making sure to advance the bookmarks every couple of days just to let her know I was on top of things. These were genuinely interesting and helpful books, and gave information in quiz-like formats, such as:
A. The word "starboard" refers to
1. the left side of the boat when you are facing "fore"
2. the left side of the boat when you are facing "aft"
3. what is "left" of the boat "before" and "after" you have run it into the pilings
B. When approaching another boat in the harbor, the right-of-way goes to
1. the larger boat
2. the armed drug-smugglers
3. babes
C. A "nautical mile" is
1. 6,076 feet
2. sort of like a mile, but wet
3. another one of life's mysteries
If you answered 1, 2, or 3 for the above, you deserve a boat for Father's Day. In fact, I'll just bet you'll get--a necktie.
# # #
Let's face it, unconditional love is a wonderful thing, but it can't go 45 knots on the open ocean while the wind whips at your receding hairline and the salt spray rips your contacts right out of your face as you are reminded of freedoms you recklessly abused in your youth.
And neither can a necktie.
There is nothing like a boat. Not just any boat, and certainly not a boat with sails. Things that are powered by wind are dangerous--anyone who has been to a frat party knows this for a fact.
Big Motors
No, the boat has to have an motor, a big motor, maybe two, that are annoyingly loud and burn more fossil fuel in an hour than a Prius does in a year. It has to be a boat fitted with swivel chairs where you can sit and hook large denizens of the deep that usually turn out to be other guy's line. It has to be a boat your accountant will counsel against buying. And your lawyer, for that matter. It has to be a testosterone-driven boat.
Not that you'd expect your children to buy a boat like that. But you would expect a reaction from your wife, who is standing in the background, ready to pick up clues about what you want for Father's Day. And you'll get it, after the kids are in bed.
"What's this about a boat?" she'll ask. (Translation: Forget the boat.)
"Oh, nothing, just joshing the kids." (Translation: Please, please, please?)
"No, you're not just joshing. You middle-aged men could live in the Kalahari Desert and you'd still want a boat." (Translation: I could have married Richard Smedley. He's a doctor now.)
"No, really, I don't want a boat." (Translation: How about a small boat? And who's middle-aged?)
"Besides, what do you know about boats?" (Translation: A fence post knows more about boats than you do.)
Connecticut River
She would be right, of course. In my case, I grew up in Hartford, where the only place to operate a boat was the Connecticut River. This was back in the days when the river smelled like Times Square on a summer day and oozed forth alien life forms and talk-show hosts. You wouldn't even think of putting a boat in the river back then for fear of falling into the water and worrying that years later you'd produce children that look like Edward Scissorhands. Hence, no one had a boat.
But that was then. Now, I'm a grown-up guy, and as I read in the paper recently, I am apparently at the mercy of my hormones. In fact, I've been told that whenever I drive past a boatyard my nostrils flare and I emit simian-like grunts from beneath my solar plexus. My guess is that deep in the collective unconscious of modern man, we are still, at heart, hunters and gatherers. Of boats.
So when I first thought about buying a boat, I said to myself, "The only way we can do this is if I convince my wife that it will be a safe and wholesome family activity." (Translation: Lie.)
Quiz
I bought some boating safety books and placed them strategically around the house, making sure to advance the bookmarks every couple of days just to let her know I was on top of things. These were genuinely interesting and helpful books, and gave information in quiz-like formats, such as:
A. The word "starboard" refers to
1. the left side of the boat when you are facing "fore"
2. the left side of the boat when you are facing "aft"
3. what is "left" of the boat "before" and "after" you have run it into the pilings
B. When approaching another boat in the harbor, the right-of-way goes to
1. the larger boat
2. the armed drug-smugglers
3. babes
C. A "nautical mile" is
1. 6,076 feet
2. sort of like a mile, but wet
3. another one of life's mysteries
If you answered 1, 2, or 3 for the above, you deserve a boat for Father's Day. In fact, I'll just bet you'll get--a necktie.
# # #
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Naked Fear
I don't get naked much. I suppose I do as often as the next guy, say for bathing or when it has some medical purpose, but I have this hunch that most people don't get naked much for completely understandable reasons. It is simply inappropriate for most of the working day, and sometimes it's just too damn cold.
Of course, getting naked at nude beaches is supposed to be a different story. Personally, I have always had a fear of sitting stitchless on a beach wondering how I'm going to make it to the water without everyone knowing as much about me as my mother does. Actually, it's not quite a fear, it's more a rumbling anxiety, the same gut-surge I feel whenever Britney Spears is about to tell us how much Kabbalah has meant to her during recovery. It is the fear of knowing too much about the uneasy bits of a person's life.
Which is why I will never understand how, on my first trip to the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, I was goaded into going to the famous Orient Bay clothing-optional beach by my otherwise professional colleague, a reporter whom I'll call "Steve" because if his wife knew that he'd been sitting on a beach with several hundred beautiful and tastefully undressed women, she would not understand that he was able to convince himself that he did it for reportorial purposes only, and might very well do him serious harm. And I don't need that on my conscience.
So on we went; I, with a mixture of reluctance and queasy curiosity, and Steve with an oddly perverse enthusiasm, like Dick Cheney at a quail run.
Needing shade
When we arrived at the flesh-dense beach, it occurred to me that, in this environment, shade would be at a premium. So we found the umbrella hut and its proprietor, a young woman who was completely starkers except for an ankle bracelet and, of all horrors, a pair of mirrored sunglasses. She was French, as we found out when we tried to communicate.
The French, of course, have no shame. Several groups were playing volleyball games, or engaged in Frisbee-tossing spectacles that had them running up and down the beach, even diving into the sand. This engendered a great amount of bouncing, jiggling, and audible flapping, which looked painful and vaguely unhygienic. Yet no one seemed to care a whit. In fact, they were giddy about the whole thing. That didn't surprise me, but what did was this: I found myself admiring their freedom, their ability to be unencumbered by even the slightest degree of humiliation. Quivering and plopping, they looked less like satyrs than middle-aged, sweaty people who just happened to be naked.
Still, that didn't distract me from my own apprehensions. I broke out in a cold sweat. I have a wart on my thigh about which only two people in this world ought to admit they know, and one is me. The other is my wife, and the rest are damn liars. In my mind I began to pretend that this dime-size wart was the reason I did not want to get naked. It wasn't, of course. It was my fear that something else might be considered dime-size that drove up my blood pressure.
Naked is as naked does
But, when in Rome, etc. Being the only guy in a swimsuit on a nude beach is sort of like being Ron Paul on the campaign trail; everyone begins to wonder who invited you along. So I took a deep breath--sucked in my gut, if you really want to know--and, casting my inhibitions and trunks to the wind, found myself sitting naked next to a man whom I suddenly realized I hardly knew at all.
I reacted as I knew I would. I grabbed Steve's notebook--he was busy staring at something--and held it purposefully over that area of my body on which I could not in good conscience nor in public slather even the least bit of sunblock without appearing to enjoy it. This moment of terror started me wondering about the human condition. More pointedly, the human body condition.
Steve happens to have a pretty good body because he works out at a gym and has never eaten real food, apparently deriving nourishment via the osmosis of tanning oil. I, on the other hand, have the rugged exterior of a professional pie-eating contestant, and have begun to notice the waist spread that we nearly middle-aged men call "contentment diffusion."
When you go to a clothing-optional beach--I used to call them nude beaches and once did so in print, but was corrected by a hotel proprietor who assured me the word "nude" is tawdry and that there is, apparently, a significant difference between "nude" people and "clothing-optioned" people--you go with the knowledge that someone might very well look at your body parts. Don't ever let nudists, or clothing-optionalists, tell you their sole purpose in doffing their duds is the desire to get back to nature. Nature as I know it consists of carcinogenic sunbeams, rabid poison ivy, and mutant mosquitoes that carry away your babies. And all these things attack the skin, a large amount of which is available when you are stitchless.
Nosy people
No, publicly naked people are not always naturalists. They are something much closer to the human core, more primal.
They are nosy.
They want to compare. They want to compare this part or that part--not always pruriently, but for the sake of old-fashioned, competitive curiosity.
People are always competitive, even off the beach. We compare jobs, diseases, our divorce settlements. Men, I have come to believe, are the worst offenders. We compare what we call our "equipment."
When men talk about their equipment, they often use references to hardware or other objects one can easily pick up at Sears. I have a friend who uses the nickname "Old Kenmore Washer/Dryer" for his. Steve, on the other hand, inexplicably refers to his as "The United Nations." I personally use song titles such as "The Great Pretender." I needn't go into other possibilities here, you can let your imagination run amuck. The point is, men compare but would never be caught dead talking about it. Except in extremely public forums such as this one.
So there I sat in the buff (possibly from the French ou est le boeuf, literally "where's the beef?"), comparing and silently cursing my ancestry, which I'd begun to believe had shortchanged me, so to speak. I watched people walk by. Some were out of shape, the other side of Rubenesque. Others were buff, hard-bodies, toned and tanned. They were having fun. They were free with their bodies, serene in their innocence, at one with their universe and universal exposure.
They were French, of course.
And, as I said, I'd begun to admire their freedom. Beyond this concession, however, I vowed to never again be naked in public. It is flat out ridiculous for a grown man to be naked with people other than those who are required by marriage vows or professional courtesy not to laugh. I was reminded of this later when, upon returning the umbrella, I caught my reflection in the woman's mirrored sunglasses. Sand, I thought, does not make the man.
###
Of course, getting naked at nude beaches is supposed to be a different story. Personally, I have always had a fear of sitting stitchless on a beach wondering how I'm going to make it to the water without everyone knowing as much about me as my mother does. Actually, it's not quite a fear, it's more a rumbling anxiety, the same gut-surge I feel whenever Britney Spears is about to tell us how much Kabbalah has meant to her during recovery. It is the fear of knowing too much about the uneasy bits of a person's life.
Which is why I will never understand how, on my first trip to the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, I was goaded into going to the famous Orient Bay clothing-optional beach by my otherwise professional colleague, a reporter whom I'll call "Steve" because if his wife knew that he'd been sitting on a beach with several hundred beautiful and tastefully undressed women, she would not understand that he was able to convince himself that he did it for reportorial purposes only, and might very well do him serious harm. And I don't need that on my conscience.
So on we went; I, with a mixture of reluctance and queasy curiosity, and Steve with an oddly perverse enthusiasm, like Dick Cheney at a quail run.
Needing shade
When we arrived at the flesh-dense beach, it occurred to me that, in this environment, shade would be at a premium. So we found the umbrella hut and its proprietor, a young woman who was completely starkers except for an ankle bracelet and, of all horrors, a pair of mirrored sunglasses. She was French, as we found out when we tried to communicate.
The French, of course, have no shame. Several groups were playing volleyball games, or engaged in Frisbee-tossing spectacles that had them running up and down the beach, even diving into the sand. This engendered a great amount of bouncing, jiggling, and audible flapping, which looked painful and vaguely unhygienic. Yet no one seemed to care a whit. In fact, they were giddy about the whole thing. That didn't surprise me, but what did was this: I found myself admiring their freedom, their ability to be unencumbered by even the slightest degree of humiliation. Quivering and plopping, they looked less like satyrs than middle-aged, sweaty people who just happened to be naked.
Still, that didn't distract me from my own apprehensions. I broke out in a cold sweat. I have a wart on my thigh about which only two people in this world ought to admit they know, and one is me. The other is my wife, and the rest are damn liars. In my mind I began to pretend that this dime-size wart was the reason I did not want to get naked. It wasn't, of course. It was my fear that something else might be considered dime-size that drove up my blood pressure.
Naked is as naked does
But, when in Rome, etc. Being the only guy in a swimsuit on a nude beach is sort of like being Ron Paul on the campaign trail; everyone begins to wonder who invited you along. So I took a deep breath--sucked in my gut, if you really want to know--and, casting my inhibitions and trunks to the wind, found myself sitting naked next to a man whom I suddenly realized I hardly knew at all.
I reacted as I knew I would. I grabbed Steve's notebook--he was busy staring at something--and held it purposefully over that area of my body on which I could not in good conscience nor in public slather even the least bit of sunblock without appearing to enjoy it. This moment of terror started me wondering about the human condition. More pointedly, the human body condition.
Steve happens to have a pretty good body because he works out at a gym and has never eaten real food, apparently deriving nourishment via the osmosis of tanning oil. I, on the other hand, have the rugged exterior of a professional pie-eating contestant, and have begun to notice the waist spread that we nearly middle-aged men call "contentment diffusion."
When you go to a clothing-optional beach--I used to call them nude beaches and once did so in print, but was corrected by a hotel proprietor who assured me the word "nude" is tawdry and that there is, apparently, a significant difference between "nude" people and "clothing-optioned" people--you go with the knowledge that someone might very well look at your body parts. Don't ever let nudists, or clothing-optionalists, tell you their sole purpose in doffing their duds is the desire to get back to nature. Nature as I know it consists of carcinogenic sunbeams, rabid poison ivy, and mutant mosquitoes that carry away your babies. And all these things attack the skin, a large amount of which is available when you are stitchless.
Nosy people
No, publicly naked people are not always naturalists. They are something much closer to the human core, more primal.
They are nosy.
They want to compare. They want to compare this part or that part--not always pruriently, but for the sake of old-fashioned, competitive curiosity.
People are always competitive, even off the beach. We compare jobs, diseases, our divorce settlements. Men, I have come to believe, are the worst offenders. We compare what we call our "equipment."
When men talk about their equipment, they often use references to hardware or other objects one can easily pick up at Sears. I have a friend who uses the nickname "Old Kenmore Washer/Dryer" for his. Steve, on the other hand, inexplicably refers to his as "The United Nations." I personally use song titles such as "The Great Pretender." I needn't go into other possibilities here, you can let your imagination run amuck. The point is, men compare but would never be caught dead talking about it. Except in extremely public forums such as this one.
So there I sat in the buff (possibly from the French ou est le boeuf, literally "where's the beef?"), comparing and silently cursing my ancestry, which I'd begun to believe had shortchanged me, so to speak. I watched people walk by. Some were out of shape, the other side of Rubenesque. Others were buff, hard-bodies, toned and tanned. They were having fun. They were free with their bodies, serene in their innocence, at one with their universe and universal exposure.
They were French, of course.
And, as I said, I'd begun to admire their freedom. Beyond this concession, however, I vowed to never again be naked in public. It is flat out ridiculous for a grown man to be naked with people other than those who are required by marriage vows or professional courtesy not to laugh. I was reminded of this later when, upon returning the umbrella, I caught my reflection in the woman's mirrored sunglasses. Sand, I thought, does not make the man.
###
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Andy Rooney Eyes
I've been waking up lately feeling like Andy Rooney. This wouldn't be particularly startling except I'm also beginning to look like Andy Rooney, who, except for a set of eyebrows that could choke a chainsaw, is actually not a bad looking guy. For his age. The Rooney condition has inspired a number of uplifting conversations with my wife.
Me: "Things seem sort of dark these days."
My wife: "It's your eyebrows, they're blocking the sun."
Me: "No, I mean spiritually, existentially."
My wife: "What's existential about eyebrows? Trim them, you look like Andy Rooney."
Me: "You mean cut them? With scissors? Near my eyes?"
My wife: "I'll never understand men."
I'll never be an astronaut
The reason I'm feeling, and looking, like Andy Rooney is simple: I'm not as young as I used to be. It's not that I can be classified as old, not quite yet. But I'm one of the millions of men my age--which is Too Young to Die But Old Enough To Appreciate The Pain Mick Jagger Must Be In--who are approaching middle age with the poise of a hooked trout. We wake up thrashing in the middle of the night, screaming, "You mean it's too late to become an astronaut?!"
Well, yes it is. And it's also too late to learn how to snowboard, but that won't stop about a couple of thousand older guys from filling up the emergency rooms next winter.
Men, in typically extremist fashion, deal with aging by either acknowledging it well or not acknowledging it at all. You know the latter group, they stick out like the hair plugs they think no one will notice but everyone does because, for God's sake, they look just like, well, plugs.
Middle-aged male ponytails: big mistake
Well, it may be time for a wake-up call. It's spring, the time of the year when a guy is most likely to make the grave mistake of deciding that the Speedo he wore back in college would look good on the beach. Trust me, it won't, and it might even be illegal. It will drive normal people to cackle insanely, and small children will whimper with fear. Ditto with the reborn ponytail. It might have looked great if you had a part in "The Last Samurai," but all it does now is show the liver spots on your forehead.
All around you, there are indications it's time to admit you're middle-aged. Been thinking lately about taking up golf? Give in to it, it's the gracious thing to do and the most fun you'll have had on someone else's lawn since Woodstock.
So as a public service, and as a man who's counting, I'm offering the following "Signs Your Age is At Least a Multiple of 25" in the hope that confronting the inevitable will make for a healthier transition.
You know you're getting older...
Signs that you know you're getting older:
* Charles Barkley is still not as old as you were when he retired.
* The most fun you and your wife have naked these days is searching for ticks.
* You know your cholesterol numbers, and you know what they're suppoosed to be.
* You remember when unprotected sex meant her father could walk in.
* After finally test-driving that Corvette, the salesman has to help you out of the car.
* The kids ask you what it was like during a sit-in.
* You can answer that.
* You can spell "Rogaine" from memory.
* When someone passes gas, they all look at you and not the dog.
Finally, if you remember Wavy Gravy before he became ice-cream, you're clearly getting on. But, hey, there may be a job for you someday at "60 Minutes. "
###
Me: "Things seem sort of dark these days."
My wife: "It's your eyebrows, they're blocking the sun."
Me: "No, I mean spiritually, existentially."
My wife: "What's existential about eyebrows? Trim them, you look like Andy Rooney."
Me: "You mean cut them? With scissors? Near my eyes?"
My wife: "I'll never understand men."
I'll never be an astronaut
The reason I'm feeling, and looking, like Andy Rooney is simple: I'm not as young as I used to be. It's not that I can be classified as old, not quite yet. But I'm one of the millions of men my age--which is Too Young to Die But Old Enough To Appreciate The Pain Mick Jagger Must Be In--who are approaching middle age with the poise of a hooked trout. We wake up thrashing in the middle of the night, screaming, "You mean it's too late to become an astronaut?!"
Well, yes it is. And it's also too late to learn how to snowboard, but that won't stop about a couple of thousand older guys from filling up the emergency rooms next winter.
Men, in typically extremist fashion, deal with aging by either acknowledging it well or not acknowledging it at all. You know the latter group, they stick out like the hair plugs they think no one will notice but everyone does because, for God's sake, they look just like, well, plugs.
Middle-aged male ponytails: big mistake
Well, it may be time for a wake-up call. It's spring, the time of the year when a guy is most likely to make the grave mistake of deciding that the Speedo he wore back in college would look good on the beach. Trust me, it won't, and it might even be illegal. It will drive normal people to cackle insanely, and small children will whimper with fear. Ditto with the reborn ponytail. It might have looked great if you had a part in "The Last Samurai," but all it does now is show the liver spots on your forehead.
All around you, there are indications it's time to admit you're middle-aged. Been thinking lately about taking up golf? Give in to it, it's the gracious thing to do and the most fun you'll have had on someone else's lawn since Woodstock.
So as a public service, and as a man who's counting, I'm offering the following "Signs Your Age is At Least a Multiple of 25" in the hope that confronting the inevitable will make for a healthier transition.
You know you're getting older...
Signs that you know you're getting older:
* Charles Barkley is still not as old as you were when he retired.
* The most fun you and your wife have naked these days is searching for ticks.
* You know your cholesterol numbers, and you know what they're suppoosed to be.
* You remember when unprotected sex meant her father could walk in.
* After finally test-driving that Corvette, the salesman has to help you out of the car.
* The kids ask you what it was like during a sit-in.
* You can answer that.
* You can spell "Rogaine" from memory.
* When someone passes gas, they all look at you and not the dog.
Finally, if you remember Wavy Gravy before he became ice-cream, you're clearly getting on. But, hey, there may be a job for you someday at "60 Minutes. "
###
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Happy St. Urho's Day
A while ago, a report aired on the CBS television show "60 Minutes" that can only be described as erroneous. In a segment on the recently discovered country of Finland, the reporter Morley Safer portrayed the Finns, who are the previously unknown inhabitants of that country, as a lugubrious and melancholy people prone to alcoholism and dancing the tango. I would like to correct that impression. The Finns, as I know them, are a lugubrious and melancholy people prone to alcoholism who think they are dancing the tango. This was made evident by several clips on the program that showed people tripping, albeit in a nicely melancholy way, while trying keep their tango partners from falling over. The Finns make great music, furniture, and cell phones, but you'll never see a Fred Astair dance out of their midst.
I grew up Finnish-American, which was convenient because I was born that way, and do believe I know something of the national psyche. Even though I have never been to Finland, where vowels outnumber people two-to-one, I have many relatives whom I have been able to observe over the years. They are hard-working, resilient lot, not without a sense of humor, who get slightly tipsy only during the festive period from Easter to Christmas. And it is true that the Finns are melancholy, although one could make the argument that any country plunged into darkness for six months a year is bound to produce a people whose idea of fun is to watch a lake freeze. In the dark.
The tango
Still, why the tango? Maybe because it's just a bit more fun than watching a lake freeze. Mr. Safer had no real answer, not that he expected one. My personal theory is this: in Finland, where reindeer outnumber vowels two-to-one, you have a country which has discovered approximately 7,000 ways to prepare herring; in which brightly dressed, short people called Laplanders traverse the Arctic Circle in search of new words for "snow"; and where the populace's idea of going south for the winter involves residency permits for Latvia. Indeed, why not the tango?
Of course, the Finns do know how to have fun in other ways, something I hope Mr. Safer will note when he returns for the second installment of his report, tentatively titled "Everything But the Kitchen Helsinki." Take the famous saunas, for instance. This is where you get naked with complete strangers and sweat a lot, and then, instead of watching a lake freeze, jump into it, which may be fun but is not a user-friendly experience for certain male extremities.
St. Urho
For another example of Finnish fun, March 16th marked the extremely important Finnish holiday, St. Urho's Day, which has never been heard of in Finland.
The reason St. Urho's Day has never been heard of in Finland is that it is an entirely made up holiday--not unlike every other holiday, obviously.
Apparently, in the 1950s a Finnish-American department store manager in a town called, wishfully one thinks, Virginia, Minnesota had a hard time getting excited about his Irish employees' upcoming St. Patrick's Day festivities. In order to avoid their fun, he created a story about a national hero of his own country named St. Urho, who was every bit as neurotic as St. Patrick. His legend contended that a plague of grasshoppers had once threatened the vineyards of ancient Finland, a situation dire and immediate, and St. Urho saved the grape crop by driving the grasshoppers out of the country. To this day, the made-up legend states, on the saint's feast day of March 16th women and children dress in purple and green and gather around the lakes of Finland to chant St. Urho's message: "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, mene taalta hiiteen," which translates to "Grasshopper, grasshopper go away." Presumably, the men are elsewhere tending to grape-juice by-products, wondering why their families are shouting at lakes.
In an ironic twist, the St. Patrick's Day revelers, always eager to add another saint to the calendar, helped their manager celebrate the fictitious event, thus destroying his Lutheran determination to avoid fun.
The holiday grew wildly from there, and today most Finnish-Americans have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.
Pulla
Which doesn't mean the holiday isn't celebrated, albeit in a herringbone-in-cheek sort of way. We never celebrated it in my family, but we didn't tango either. We did, however, eat a wonderful sweet bread prepared by my father's Aunt Saimi, called "pulla." Yet, there is a down-side to Finnish cuisine. As St. Patrick's Day has its own green beer and corned beef, the Finns have their own St. Urho's Day dinner. It consists of, and this is authentic, fish stew, rye bread, hardtack, butter, and vegetable sticks.
After a meal like that, who could resist the tango?
###
I grew up Finnish-American, which was convenient because I was born that way, and do believe I know something of the national psyche. Even though I have never been to Finland, where vowels outnumber people two-to-one, I have many relatives whom I have been able to observe over the years. They are hard-working, resilient lot, not without a sense of humor, who get slightly tipsy only during the festive period from Easter to Christmas. And it is true that the Finns are melancholy, although one could make the argument that any country plunged into darkness for six months a year is bound to produce a people whose idea of fun is to watch a lake freeze. In the dark.
The tango
Still, why the tango? Maybe because it's just a bit more fun than watching a lake freeze. Mr. Safer had no real answer, not that he expected one. My personal theory is this: in Finland, where reindeer outnumber vowels two-to-one, you have a country which has discovered approximately 7,000 ways to prepare herring; in which brightly dressed, short people called Laplanders traverse the Arctic Circle in search of new words for "snow"; and where the populace's idea of going south for the winter involves residency permits for Latvia. Indeed, why not the tango?
Of course, the Finns do know how to have fun in other ways, something I hope Mr. Safer will note when he returns for the second installment of his report, tentatively titled "Everything But the Kitchen Helsinki." Take the famous saunas, for instance. This is where you get naked with complete strangers and sweat a lot, and then, instead of watching a lake freeze, jump into it, which may be fun but is not a user-friendly experience for certain male extremities.
St. Urho
For another example of Finnish fun, March 16th marked the extremely important Finnish holiday, St. Urho's Day, which has never been heard of in Finland.
The reason St. Urho's Day has never been heard of in Finland is that it is an entirely made up holiday--not unlike every other holiday, obviously.
Apparently, in the 1950s a Finnish-American department store manager in a town called, wishfully one thinks, Virginia, Minnesota had a hard time getting excited about his Irish employees' upcoming St. Patrick's Day festivities. In order to avoid their fun, he created a story about a national hero of his own country named St. Urho, who was every bit as neurotic as St. Patrick. His legend contended that a plague of grasshoppers had once threatened the vineyards of ancient Finland, a situation dire and immediate, and St. Urho saved the grape crop by driving the grasshoppers out of the country. To this day, the made-up legend states, on the saint's feast day of March 16th women and children dress in purple and green and gather around the lakes of Finland to chant St. Urho's message: "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, mene taalta hiiteen," which translates to "Grasshopper, grasshopper go away." Presumably, the men are elsewhere tending to grape-juice by-products, wondering why their families are shouting at lakes.
In an ironic twist, the St. Patrick's Day revelers, always eager to add another saint to the calendar, helped their manager celebrate the fictitious event, thus destroying his Lutheran determination to avoid fun.
The holiday grew wildly from there, and today most Finnish-Americans have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.
Pulla
Which doesn't mean the holiday isn't celebrated, albeit in a herringbone-in-cheek sort of way. We never celebrated it in my family, but we didn't tango either. We did, however, eat a wonderful sweet bread prepared by my father's Aunt Saimi, called "pulla." Yet, there is a down-side to Finnish cuisine. As St. Patrick's Day has its own green beer and corned beef, the Finns have their own St. Urho's Day dinner. It consists of, and this is authentic, fish stew, rye bread, hardtack, butter, and vegetable sticks.
After a meal like that, who could resist the tango?
###
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Nearly Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors is indeed great---until you're actually outdoors. That's when you realize that the call of nature that summoned you away from ESPN has also called all the world's ticks, gnats, green flies, wasps, hornets, thorns, poisons ivy and oak, carcinogenic ultraviolet sun rays, and mosquitoes bigger than your Aunt Edna's head to drop by for a visit.
Don't get me wrong, I like nature…documentaries. But to go outside, especially during summer, is the kind of adventure I think best left to professionals who are paid to swim with sharks or dig potatoes in their Victory Garden. However, I'm no recluse, and I do force myself to get out once in a while, mainly for my kids' sake. In summer we go to the lakes, we slip the canoe into a pond, and when we're on vacation we walk miles along the shore to dig up steamer clams that, according to them, look like something that Hagrid, from the Harry Potter books, might have hacked up. We have our fun.
And, one of the positive aspects of stepping out your front door is that invariably you learn something about yourself. I, for one, have learned that I'd rather not be there, but you already know that. But take a couple of years ago, when we took the kids camping at a state park in Massachusetts. Here's what I learned:
1. If you buy a cheap tent at K-Mart because a real tent from a proper camping store is a commitment too painful to make, you should open it up to make sure all the parts and poles are there before you're standing at the campsite while the light fades, slapping mosquitoes on your sweaty neck, and looming over what appears to be a burial shroud. An important part of a tent is the "rain flap," so called because without it the tent will flap uselessly in the wind and will be completely unprotected from rain, but that's irrelevant---it wasn't packed in the box. I also learned that at times like this it's therapeutic to mutter colorful words under your breath, away from the kids, whom you've sent into the woods to find branches to help prop up the tent, and, at this point, your marriage.
2. If you decide to buy your 10-year-old son a pocketknife to mark his first camping trip, don't let him practice whittling by using the branches that are now attached to, and holding up, the tent.
3. The human capacity for S'mores in a single sitting is one per 20 pounds of body mass. Even one more than is allowed will turn the expression "happy camper" into the oxymoron it nearly always threatens to be.
4. The complete lyrics to "Freebird." The group next to us, meaning they were approximately eleven inches from our flapless tent, and who were, I think, from Dubuque because they kept commenting on how clams looked like something Hagrid from the Harry Potter books might have hacked up, enhanced their intimate evening campfire by sharing their Lynyrd Skynyrd tapes with us at high volume, endlessly, with no break. Until a skunk ambled through their campsite and sent them running.
5. I love skunks.
###
Don't get me wrong, I like nature…documentaries. But to go outside, especially during summer, is the kind of adventure I think best left to professionals who are paid to swim with sharks or dig potatoes in their Victory Garden. However, I'm no recluse, and I do force myself to get out once in a while, mainly for my kids' sake. In summer we go to the lakes, we slip the canoe into a pond, and when we're on vacation we walk miles along the shore to dig up steamer clams that, according to them, look like something that Hagrid, from the Harry Potter books, might have hacked up. We have our fun.
And, one of the positive aspects of stepping out your front door is that invariably you learn something about yourself. I, for one, have learned that I'd rather not be there, but you already know that. But take a couple of years ago, when we took the kids camping at a state park in Massachusetts. Here's what I learned:
1. If you buy a cheap tent at K-Mart because a real tent from a proper camping store is a commitment too painful to make, you should open it up to make sure all the parts and poles are there before you're standing at the campsite while the light fades, slapping mosquitoes on your sweaty neck, and looming over what appears to be a burial shroud. An important part of a tent is the "rain flap," so called because without it the tent will flap uselessly in the wind and will be completely unprotected from rain, but that's irrelevant---it wasn't packed in the box. I also learned that at times like this it's therapeutic to mutter colorful words under your breath, away from the kids, whom you've sent into the woods to find branches to help prop up the tent, and, at this point, your marriage.
2. If you decide to buy your 10-year-old son a pocketknife to mark his first camping trip, don't let him practice whittling by using the branches that are now attached to, and holding up, the tent.
3. The human capacity for S'mores in a single sitting is one per 20 pounds of body mass. Even one more than is allowed will turn the expression "happy camper" into the oxymoron it nearly always threatens to be.
4. The complete lyrics to "Freebird." The group next to us, meaning they were approximately eleven inches from our flapless tent, and who were, I think, from Dubuque because they kept commenting on how clams looked like something Hagrid from the Harry Potter books might have hacked up, enhanced their intimate evening campfire by sharing their Lynyrd Skynyrd tapes with us at high volume, endlessly, with no break. Until a skunk ambled through their campsite and sent them running.
5. I love skunks.
###
Friday, March 16, 2007
Sprung
"Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet.
And all things are made young with young desires."
Francis Thompson (1859-1907), British poet.
"Where in the hell are those hay-fever pills?"
Richard (1946- ), my barber.
Spring--the cliches are enough to make even the hardest of hearts surge with pleasant feelings of warmth and renewal: bunny rabbits, ball games, flower blossoms, starry-eyed young lovers, and, of course, the realization that five months sitting indoors on a steady diet of Doritos (corporate sponsors please note) and Ben & Jerry's (my e-mail is below) seems to have shrunk our trousers several sizes.
To paraphrase Tennyson, in spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of what he will look like in bathing trunks, and I can assure you that it is not always a pretty sight. Not that it ever stopped your average gold-chain-wearing car salesman with a paunch the size of a small Toyota from strutting along the beach in bikini briefs which he can't even see--no, far from it. As a matter of fact, it is part of the sartorial code of automobile salesmen, also known as the Big Fat Gut Inverse Proportion Rule, that the larger the beer belly gets, so shrinks the bathing suit.
Rolling thunder
Still, there are those of us with some semblance of pride, and our intent is to get into shape before Memorial Day. We were once adolescents ourselves, and have spent many idle hours at the beach looking too sleek and sinewy for our own good, swearing we would never sells cars for a living and calling our oleaginousness-challenged beach-mates "Rolling Thunder," "Jello Jowls," and other less kind names. We remember those times, and swear on a stack of Rogaine that we will never get so far out of shape that we will be forced, by law, to buy gold chains and bikini bathing trunks.
And we intend to do this without breaking a sweat.
So how, you are rightly asking, can one hope to drop 30 pounds by Memorial Day without exercise--or severe liposuction?
Lipo
Good question. First, let me say one important thing. Men do not undergo liposuction. It simply is not done. As I understand it, the act involves sucking the living cells from the fatty tissues of one's body. These fatty areas are often located at the waist, hips, and thighs, and it just so happens that they are also located very close to another extremely important region of a man's body. If there is any chance whatsoever that this region will be reduced in any way, even by accident, you will never find a man willing to go under the vacuum. There are enough burdens in life without having to explain that one in the locker room. Of course, if the procedure could be reversed, we're talking lines around the block.
Secondly, let me say something else. Men are vain. We will do almost anything to again look like we did in high school, without a) admitting it, and b) the pimples.
Almost anything except exercise.
Men sweat, of course, but only when they're doing things like work, or playing a game. Exercise means something like aerobics, and Richard Simmons has pretty much killed that idea for all time.
Plane aerobics
Except for a new type of aerobics that I discovered recently. It is called, please catch the play on words here, "Plane Aerobics."
I saw this, as you might have guessed, on an airplane. It was Northwest Airlines, whose bonafide corporate motto at the time was "Some People Just Know How to Fly." Presumably, of course, those "Some People" are the very people behind the wheel of our airplane.
Anyway, just after the meal (my wife and I had pre-ordered the vegetarian special because we do not trust airline mystery meat, which was served by a hostess who said, and I am not kidding, "You are going to be sorry you ordered this") they started a video called "Plane Aerobics."
The video featured a woman decked out in the standard aerobic gear, including a sweatband on her forehead which would no doubt catch the one micro-molecule of sweat produced by these aerobics exercises. Let me remind you that every one of these is done in a standard sitting-down position, airline style:
1. Tap your left foot five times. Tap your right. Tap them together.
2. Role your left foot at the ankle. Roll your right. Roll them together.
3. Lift your left leg several inches. Lift your right. Lift them together.
4. Inhale.
5. Exhale.
It goes on, but I think you get the picture. It's enough to say that we were all invigorated by the workout, and were later better able to handle the stress of the customs inspector discovering the crate of oranges we seemed to have accidently packed in our luggage.
And, so pumped, when I was offered the duty-free on-board shopping list, I was able to pass up the gold chains with a hint of smuggishness.
###
And all things are made young with young desires."
Francis Thompson (1859-1907), British poet.
"Where in the hell are those hay-fever pills?"
Richard (1946- ), my barber.
Spring--the cliches are enough to make even the hardest of hearts surge with pleasant feelings of warmth and renewal: bunny rabbits, ball games, flower blossoms, starry-eyed young lovers, and, of course, the realization that five months sitting indoors on a steady diet of Doritos (corporate sponsors please note) and Ben & Jerry's (my e-mail is below) seems to have shrunk our trousers several sizes.
To paraphrase Tennyson, in spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of what he will look like in bathing trunks, and I can assure you that it is not always a pretty sight. Not that it ever stopped your average gold-chain-wearing car salesman with a paunch the size of a small Toyota from strutting along the beach in bikini briefs which he can't even see--no, far from it. As a matter of fact, it is part of the sartorial code of automobile salesmen, also known as the Big Fat Gut Inverse Proportion Rule, that the larger the beer belly gets, so shrinks the bathing suit.
Rolling thunder
Still, there are those of us with some semblance of pride, and our intent is to get into shape before Memorial Day. We were once adolescents ourselves, and have spent many idle hours at the beach looking too sleek and sinewy for our own good, swearing we would never sells cars for a living and calling our oleaginousness-challenged beach-mates "Rolling Thunder," "Jello Jowls," and other less kind names. We remember those times, and swear on a stack of Rogaine that we will never get so far out of shape that we will be forced, by law, to buy gold chains and bikini bathing trunks.
And we intend to do this without breaking a sweat.
So how, you are rightly asking, can one hope to drop 30 pounds by Memorial Day without exercise--or severe liposuction?
Lipo
Good question. First, let me say one important thing. Men do not undergo liposuction. It simply is not done. As I understand it, the act involves sucking the living cells from the fatty tissues of one's body. These fatty areas are often located at the waist, hips, and thighs, and it just so happens that they are also located very close to another extremely important region of a man's body. If there is any chance whatsoever that this region will be reduced in any way, even by accident, you will never find a man willing to go under the vacuum. There are enough burdens in life without having to explain that one in the locker room. Of course, if the procedure could be reversed, we're talking lines around the block.
Secondly, let me say something else. Men are vain. We will do almost anything to again look like we did in high school, without a) admitting it, and b) the pimples.
Almost anything except exercise.
Men sweat, of course, but only when they're doing things like work, or playing a game. Exercise means something like aerobics, and Richard Simmons has pretty much killed that idea for all time.
Plane aerobics
Except for a new type of aerobics that I discovered recently. It is called, please catch the play on words here, "Plane Aerobics."
I saw this, as you might have guessed, on an airplane. It was Northwest Airlines, whose bonafide corporate motto at the time was "Some People Just Know How to Fly." Presumably, of course, those "Some People" are the very people behind the wheel of our airplane.
Anyway, just after the meal (my wife and I had pre-ordered the vegetarian special because we do not trust airline mystery meat, which was served by a hostess who said, and I am not kidding, "You are going to be sorry you ordered this") they started a video called "Plane Aerobics."
The video featured a woman decked out in the standard aerobic gear, including a sweatband on her forehead which would no doubt catch the one micro-molecule of sweat produced by these aerobics exercises. Let me remind you that every one of these is done in a standard sitting-down position, airline style:
1. Tap your left foot five times. Tap your right. Tap them together.
2. Role your left foot at the ankle. Roll your right. Roll them together.
3. Lift your left leg several inches. Lift your right. Lift them together.
4. Inhale.
5. Exhale.
It goes on, but I think you get the picture. It's enough to say that we were all invigorated by the workout, and were later better able to handle the stress of the customs inspector discovering the crate of oranges we seemed to have accidently packed in our luggage.
And, so pumped, when I was offered the duty-free on-board shopping list, I was able to pass up the gold chains with a hint of smuggishness.
###
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