Sponge Bob's too much today

Big birthday party for my brother-in-law's stepson yesterday. I wanted to sleep in, but nooooooo ... gotta deliver presents to the ten-year-old.

Nothing tastes as good to a hung-over stomache as Sponge Bob birthday cake and vanilla ice cream. I knew the party was scheduled, so I could have chosen to NOT drink so much whiskey at the gig the night before. My own fault.

It's always nice to get together with the extended family, though, so what the heck. I thought I had something to say about all this, but I guess I don't. Maybe once the hangover's completely gone. 

Duty calls, and I must ignore it if possible

Had a job interview yesterday.

It was my first since I was canned a little over three weeks ago from the position I’d held for the past 12 years.

My old editor (I work[ed] at a newspaper) was a real sweetie. She retired and the new editor turned out to be the Socratic ideal of a dickwad. A little guy (pictured at left, an actual recent photo of the jackass), he suffers from a Napoleon complex the likes of which I have never seen.

Anyway, I wound up knocking him down during an editorial “meeting of the minds.” Turns out knocking your boss down is a “fire-able” offense. Who knew?
At any rate, the interview yesterday went well and I’m cautiously confident I have the job. It’s a good gig: benefits, insurance, 401K … all the candy. The salary’s no more than I was getting before, but no less, either. And, let’s be real, this is journalism we’re talking about – the pay’s gonna suck no matter where I work.

The best part is I’ll be working primarily from my home office (formerly known as my oldest son’s bedroom). This means that – on days when I have no interviews or staff meetings, at least – I can work in my boxer shorts.

Boxer shorts are infinitely preferable to a shirt and tie. They require no ironing, don’t cinch at the collar and allow easy access to my ass should it at any time begin to itch. My ass doesn’t itch that often, but it’s good to know I can reach it quickly should the condition occur.

I told my potential new employers I wouldn’t be available for work until mid-September, which will allow a couple more weeks of goofing off and one big Labor Day blowout party with the daughter, sons and grandmonsters. Also, it'll give The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I ample time for a nice vacation to Mackinaw Island, where we will eat fudge, drink coffee, ride bikes and engage in wild motel sex! (If you’re one of my aforementioned kids, please disregard that last statement, as it may cause hysterical blindness.)

Love to write more, but there are fish in the lake. I can hear them calling. Best to answer before I find myself re-employed.

Hey look! I can swear!

I can say "fuck."

That's right, fuck. I can also say shit, damn, twat, pussy, hell, crap, anus, penis, dick, cock, shit - oh, wait, did that one already. I could even use the "C" word, but my wife really hates that one, so I won't, not even here.

For you veteran bloggers, this is no big deal, I know. But for the past 20 years or so, I've been writing a newspaper column, published in myriad weeklies and dailies around the state (Michigan). Before seeing print, my column was reviewed with the utmost scrutiny by editors with an eye toward pleasing advertisers and increasingly elderly readers.

So I couldn't say "fuck." Not in print, at least.

I also couldn't come right out and say that I think Baptists are - for the most part - the largest douchebags ever produced by the process of evolution. That's right, fuckers: E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N! Get used to the word, dipshits! Whether you like it or not, your ancestors (and mine, too, probably) were descended from apes. In the case of Baptists, boring apes.

While you're at it, you also can get used to the idea that the world is not flat, masturbation does not cause blindness (I should know), and dancing is okay, unless performed by white men in business suits.

Now, newspaper people being part of the "liberal media," most of my editors over the years have shared my opinion of Baptists. And most of them have frequently, or occasionally at least, used the word "fuck."

But God forbid the "F" word, or detrimental comments regarding any particular religious organization, should ever find their way into the pages of the Sunday edition.

I'm not blaming the editors, mind, or the publishers, advertising reps or comp department; if they want to keep publishing - and they do, because it's easier than getting a real job - then they have to play by the rules. And for mainstream family newspapers struggling to hold onto their ever-diminishing market shares, Rule Number One is: don't piss people off.

But here I am, not trying to sell anything to anyone. Not giving a flying fuck who I piss off. Ahh ... feels good.

As I mentioned earlier, you folks who began your publishing career on-screen rather than on-paper take this freedom for granted, I'm guessing. And that's a good thing. Maybe, eventually, I will too.

But for now it feels so ... fucking GREAT! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Okay, I think I got it out of my system. At least the swearing part. But I am never going to like Baptists!

George Jetson is No Toy Robot

I’m really hoping I get what I want this Christmas. I usually get awesome stuff and have no complaints, but I never seem to get what I really want. Last Christmas I scored a nice DVD player, a book or two, a few CDs, a shirt that actually fit, and a lot of other cool stuff. It was great. But, as usual, I didn’t get what I really, REALLY want.

A toy robot.

It wouldn’t have to be one of those ultra-advanced, super-cool “real” robots that vacuums floors and brings you drinks. Just a regular toy robot that rolls along, beeps and bings, and sucks up C-cell batteries at the rate of about 30 per hour.

I’ve wanted a toy robot ever since third grade.

I didn’t get one then. I didn’t get one when I was in 4th grade, either, or 5th, or 6th, or ever.

The problem was, my folks were broke. Real broke.

These were the years after they laid my dad off at the furniture factory, but before he finally got up and running in the restaurant business. These were lean years, man. Food stamp years. The kind of years Dickens wrote novels about.

Times were tough, and toy robots were WAY down there on my parents’ “must have” list; just above genuine Royal Wentworth china but below a six-week vacation in Paris for the entire family. In short, the toy robot was not going to happen.

At least not for me.

Still, my folks did the best they could with five kids and a non-existent budget. On Christmas morning, instead of a battery-powered, C-cell sucking robot that beeped and binged, I got a wind-up George Jetson. A little stamped tin toy, made in China; the sort of thing you could buy at the dime store and get change back from your dollar.

I also got some socks, underwear and even a new pair of winter boots. Stuff higher on my parents’ “must have” list than was a toy robot. But stuff that - to a 3rd-grader - doesn’t even count as a gift.

I was a little disappointed, and it would have been understandable had I been bummed out big time. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t sad, or angry, or put out, or anything like that.

I hadn’t gotten the robot, but hell, we had a tree with homemade decorations, we had plenty of food on the table, and - not to wax too Walton’s-esque - we had each other. All in all, I felt pretty good about Santa, the Baby Jesus, and life in general.

“Poor” doesn’t really mean a lot to a 3rd-grade kid. At least it didn’t to me.

But when school started up again the following week I got a primer on the subject. As instructed before the start of Christmas vacation, we students brought our favorite Christmas presents to class the first day back. Sort of a special “show and tell” thing.

I wasn’t about to bring socks, so George Jetson rode along in my book bag that day.
When show and tell time came, all the kids ran to the cloak room for their dolls and tanks and G.I. Joes and ... robots. There were three of them in there. The biggest and fanciest of the lot belonged to Chuck Scraab, a kid I both hated and feared; he and his “gang” used to beat me up on the way home from school at least three days a week.

On the days they were too busy to beat me up, they would instead follow me home making fun of my clothes, haircut, family, religion and parents’ lack of money.

And now Chuck had ... my ... robot. It was a thing of true beauty. At least 24-inches tall, with lasers protruding from its black metal chest and eyes that blinked on and off. There were rocket launchers built into its shoulders. And it would turn around - by itself - if it bumped into a wall.
It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, before or since. And Chuck - CHUCK! - was picking it up off the cloak room floor and carrying it into the classroom.

I could hardly breathe.

Back at our desks, we all waved our hands in the air, impatient to be called upon to display our treasures to the rest of the class. Chuck was chosen to go third.

He switched the robot on. It beeped. It binged. Lights flashed. The rocket launchers launched their rockets. The Second Coming couldn’t have impressed me more.

Chuck, robot in arms, walked past my desk on his way back to his own. “Hey Taylor,” he sneered, glancing at my little tin wind-up toy, “what’s that piece of junk?”

I quietly slipped George Jetson back into my book bag and stopped raising my hand.
The other kids were called on one by one. They showed their dolls and tanks and G.I. Joes. Eventually, Mrs. Carlson called on me, even though my hand wasn’t raised.

I thought about the cool toys the other kids had shown. I thought about Chuck Scraab’s robot, and about all the ridicule sure to be heaped on me after I’d demonstrated my cheap little tin George Jetson in front of the whole class. And for the first time, I thought about being poor.
I thought about my raggedy clothes and the look on the cashier’s face when my mother paid for our groceries with food stamps. I thought about our family car, the rust-holes in the floorboards my dad had patched with cardboard and duct-tape. I thought about the big, white-labeled can of Welfare peanut butter sitting at home in the kitchen cupboard.

For the first time in my life, I was ashamed of who I was, where I came from.
Red-faced, I managed to squeak out, “I forgot to bring my toy, Mrs. Carlson.”

I bawled my fool head off all the way home that day. Thankfully and for once, Scraab and his gang were nowhere to be seen and didn’t witness my humiliation.

About half-way home, I pitched George Jetson into a snow bank and kept walking.
In bed that night, I got thinking about ol’ George, lying out there, face-down in the cold. I thought about my dad’s tired, defeated face and his twice-weekly trips to the unemployment office; about my mom, struggling to find new ways to stretch a pound of hamburger to feed seven people; about our Christmas tree, decked out with my Aunt Madeline’s hand-me-down lights and popcorn we’d strung ourselves, and I realized ... I was still ashamed.

But I wasn’t ashamed of my family, of our poverty ... I wasn’t ashamed of where I came from. I was ashamed of myself.

My folks had scrimped to buy me that stupid tin toy, to buy the other cheap little trinkets that had been under the tree for my brothers and sisters Christmas morning. They were doing the best they could for the children they loved, and I, I had let a jackass like Chuck Scraab make me turn my back on that.

It took me a long time to get to sleep that night.

The next day I searched for my windup George Jetson, from one end of that snow bank to the other. I wish I could tell you I’d found him, took him home, and that all was then right with the world. But I didn’t find him. I searched so long I wound up getting to school ten minutes late and earning my first-ever tardy slip.

In the years that followed, my dad opened first one restaurant, then another, then still others. By my teen years, we were comfortable.

The presents at Christmastime were no longer cheap or embarrassing or made of tin. They were more likely to come from a motorcycle dealership than a dime store.

But I never did get a toy robot.

And, you know, now that I think about it, to hell with the toy robot.

What I really want is a little, wind-up George Jetson

Five Men in a Cabin

Men do a lot of things for women we would never do otherwise. I’m not talking about the chivalrous stuff like opening a car door or throwing a jacket over a mud puddle (yeah, like THAT’S ever really happened). I’m talking the basics; things like bathing, using deodorant, shaving.

Most men I know would do none of those things if it weren’t for women. If you think I’m wrong, try spending a week alone in a hunting cabin with four other guys. By the time the week is up, even the skunks will have vacated the forest.

I’ve only been hunting once in my life, and I’m lousy at it. But a few years ago some friends and I decided to take a little holiday at a hunting cabin owned by one of the guys’ parents. It was a nice little cabin running water, electricity, all the niceties of civilization.

We weren’t planning to do any hunting. We were just going to play some cards, drink a few beers, hike through the woods, maybe go for a swim or do some fishing. You know. Guy stuff.

When we first drove down the twisting two-track to the cabin, we looked like your typical suburban office rats trying to get back to nature: new plaid L.L. Bean shirts, crisply-pressed Dockers, unscuffed Vibram-soled hiking boots. By the time we left a week later we resembled the backwoods extras from the cast of “Deliverance.”

I’m not sure how it happened, but it wouldn’t have, had there been women present.
To the best of my recollection, our de-evolution into the basic male archetype went a little like this:

Day One - We arrive at the cabin, the Explorer’s 4-wheel-drive engaged for the first time ever. We unpack the truck, fill the cupboards with food (beef jerky, Lipton Cup-a-Soup, pickled sausages, beer - man food), and throw our sleeping bags onto the bunks. The cabin’s a little musty from being closed up all winter, so we open a window to let the breeze in.

Day Two - We’ve all slept in our clothes. We hadn’t intended to, but after a dinner of beer and pickled sausages, it seemed like a good idea. Or rather, undressing for bed seemed like too much bother.

Day Three - The cabin has running water, but so far, nobody’s used it to bathe. Faces are scruffy. The L.L. Bean shirts remain untucked. It’s a nice day, so we spend it fishing. That night we sit on the front porch and gut and fillet about a dozen beautiful walleye and a pail full of bluegill. We then fry ‘em and eat ‘em. We also eat more pickled sausages and drink more beer.

Day Four - It turns out that a diet of fish, pickled sausages and beer can lead to excessive amounts of - ahem - flatulence, a fact nobody is bothering to hide. We sound like a tuba section warming up. The lingering scent of fish guts on the front porch is almost a relief compared to what’s going on inside the cabin.

Day Five - The smell inside the cabin no longer bothers us. At this point our olfactory nerves have shut down entirely, a strictly defensive move on their part.

Day Six - We’re all cheating at cards. We were honest, reasonably moral guys six days ago, but all that’s changed. If we had guns with us, things would be getting dangerous. We’ve almost run out of jerky and pickled sausages, but there’s still plenty of beer and Lipton Cup-a-Soup. Nobody’s eating the Cup-a-Soup, though, because it involves boiling water, which is too much like cooking. Some of the guys are starting to lose their grasp of the English language; we communicate through a series of grunts and hand gestures. None of the hand gestures are polite.

Day Seven - The beer is gone, so we know it’s time to head home. When we stop at a store in town, other customers give us a wide berth. The store’s owner is in a hurry to get us checked out and on our way. As we leave, he reaches for a can of Lysol.

Back home, my wife greets me at the front door. Not with a hug and kiss, but with a plastic garbage bag for my L.L. Bean shirt and Dockers. She seals the bag tightly before heading to the laundry room.

Upstairs I see myself in the bathroom mirror. It ain’t pretty. The backwoods extras from “Deliverance” looked better.

The water from the shower feels strange and unfamiliar. My pores open up, gratefully accepting the chance to dislodge some of the dirt, oil and God knows what else that has accumulated there.
When I come downstairs, I am again a civilized suburbanite, smelling of Old Spice and shampoo.
But I know I will always carry with me the memory of my descent into savagery, of my week in the woods with nothing but guys for company. And I can’t help wondering...what would have happened had the pickled sausages run out before the week was over? What if we hadn’t been able to catch any fish?

Cannibalism is such an ugly word.
So let’s hear it for women! I don’t know what we’d do without them. And I’m not anxious to find out.

Mark is Better

My friend Mark is better. Than who? Well, me, for one. And chances are he's better than you, too. At what? Name something.

In the years Mark and I have been friends, he's proven his superiority in the areas of billiards, darts, tennis, guitar playing, woman attracting, drafting, business, salesmanship and swimming. He's better looking than me (incredible, but true). He's got a better sense of humor (also incredible). And until his ex-wife got through with him, he always had more money.

You would think it might be tough to like a guy like that, but it's not. In addition to being better at everything else, he's also more humble, more likeable, more, more, more! Every time I think about it, I want to strangle the life out of him. I might, too, if it weren't for the fact that he's also probably a better strangler than me.

That's why it was such a treat when, this past Fall, I actually beat him at something.

It was a cool October evening. Mark and I were in Central Lake packing up the last remnants of his belongings in anticipation of his reluctant relocation back to the Big City. After a couple hours of sofa lugging and box packing, Mark decided it was time for a break. And I, never one to turn down a chance to goof off, agreed.

Now, for Mark and me, a break just isn't a break without a couple beers. Each. In search of an open bar, we made our way across the scenic Lake Country terrain, eventually coming to rest in Elk Rapids.

There, with the sun setting behind the golden-hued leaves, Mark and I entered the Town House Saloon. Unknown to the both of us, this was to be the site of Mark's long-deserved downfall.

Once we'd bellied up to the bar and ordered our favorite brews, we proceeded to scan the lay of the land for any potential entertainment. We were hoping for redheads. Didn't find any, which is probably why we're both still alive to talk about our little adventure. Neither Mark's wife nor my Significant Other is especially understanding when it comes to the topic of redheads.

Fortunately, another entertainment opportunity soon presented itself. It turns out that on this particular evening, the Town House was sponsoring a Karaoke competition. For those of you not in the know, Karaoke is an entertainment system whereby members of the audience can sing along with pre-recorded music and make fools of themselves in front of a room full of strangers. It doesn't sound like much fun until you've downed a liquid courage. But once you have...look out.

Mark was the first to take the stage, performing a lovely rendition of an Alabama song. He wasn't bad. In fact, he was darn good. I wasn't surprized. Mark and I have worked together in various bar bands for years, and this wasn't the first time I'd heard him sing.

It took a little encouragement from the Miller Brewing Company, but I eventually found myself in front of the crowd belting out some three-chord Bob Segar tune. I was fabulous, if I say so myself (and I have to since no one else will) and the audience responded accordingly. Several other local wannabees also put forth their vocal effort, and quite a few of them were at least as talented as Mark or I.

It wasn't until later in the evening that either of us began to understand this was a competition. Till this point, we'd both assumed it was all just for fun. Now there was money at stake. Not enough money to make any kind of dent in our bar tab, but still...

All of the performers who sang during the evening returned to the stage one at a time to do their best number. Mark, realizing he was badly outclassed vocally, ripped off his shirt and did a Chuck Berry duck walk across the stage during his make or break number. It was an impressive effort, but alas, not quite impressive enough.

Unlike my overly-competetive compatriot, I took the stage with an air of quiet dignity. Or with all the quiet dignity one can muster after innumerable pitchers of dark beer. I left my shirt on and managed to perform my final number in a more or less vertical position. My choice for last tune was the expressive Chris DeBerg ballad, Lady in Red. When the last note wafted gently from my quivering lips, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. At least that's how I remember it.

At any rate, I won the twenty bucks. And I've called Mark every day since to remind him.

I sort of remember the owner of the Town House saying something about a year-end sing-off. He said he'd call me when the date for the thing had been finalized. He never called. Maybe I should have taken off my shirt.

Just a Good Ol' Boy

It almost happened. I knew that it would. Several months back I moved from my apartment in the city to a home in the country. Not the “quaint” country on the edge of town, where one of your neighbors might have a horse or two in the field next to his vinyl-sided ranch house. I’m talking about the dirt-road-no-streetlight-surrounded-by-acres-of-woods-and-corn-with-a-neighbor-who-raises-pigs-on-his-lower-forty sort of country.
It took me a while to get used to the changes; the deathly-still quiet nights, the giant deer flies strafing me during the hot summer days. And I’ve been told by people who should know that winter on a dirt road is an experience in itself. I’m not wild about the idea of knee-deep mud, but I think I can adjust.
In fact, my main worry since moving has been that I may adjust too much. I’ve been monitoring my behavior closely, watching for any noticeable signs of “ruralization.” Until last week, I had been - to all appearances - unchanged. I hadn’t started replying with a “huh-yup” or “nope” when asked if I were working on my doctorate. I hadn’t retired my Italian shoes in favor of a pair of cowboy boots. And I hadn’t taken to eating possums or the parts of a cow previously dedicated to the bovine digestive process.
My first clue that something was amiss came when my trusty 1970-something Chevy Chevette decided to give up the ghost after nearly two decades of faithful service. I was sorry to see “Old Greenie” go, but it did give me an excuse to buy a new - pick-up truck. That’s right, a pick-up truck. It took me two days to realize I hadn’t even considered another type of vehicle.
Now, it’s important to note that I have never once in my entire life given any thought to a pick-up one way or another. I knew they existed, of course, but they had never been part of my urban lifestyle. And now a move of less than 30 miles was apparently turning me slowly but surely into a “good ‘ol boy.” I seemed powerless to halt the process.
Within hours of Greenie’s death I was pulling into a local used-car/truck dealership, in search of the 4X4 of my dreams. Fortunately for my rapidly-fading urban sensibilities, the dealership had no truck which matched my list of desired criteria. I wanted something big, ugly, capable of hauling 17 tons of logs over a dirt road, and I wanted an automatic transmission and a pair of fuzzy dice. The gun rack was negotiable.
Of course, I don’t actually have any logs to haul. In fact, the biggest load of anything I’ve ever lugged in my life were groceries the week my former brother-in-law was staying at the house. But, still, there’s an appealing masculinity about a vehicle which can pull 47 times its own weight in lumber.
At any rate, the dealership didn’t have a truck I liked and I was getting ready to make a hasty exit before the used car salesman could convince me I’d really wanted a 1972 Gremlin all along. I didn’t quite make it. “How about that one?” the salesman asked, pointing to an attractive city-bred Honda Accord.
“Out of my price range,” I muttered, climbing into my Significant Other’s car.
“Well, how much are you looking to spend?”
Too late. I was now officially trapped in car salesman limbo. Thirty minutes later I drove off the lot in my new Honda. It can’t haul logs. It’s not big and ugly. It has no gun rack and no fuzzy dice. At first, I felt a nagging, low hum of disappointment.
But then something amazing happened. Riding along on cruise control with the AM/FM stereo going and the cushy seat hugging my backside, I realized I no longer had the urge to rush out and buy a Billy Ray Cyrus tape or sign up for line dancing lessons.
I’m going to call that used car salesman up and thank him. For the next 50,000 miles (good Lord willing) my urbanity is intact.

3-2-1, contact (lenses)

Got my first pair of contact lenses the other day. This represents Phase III of my long-term life plan, which I call “Get Old & Die.” Phase I took place about five years ago, when I broke down and purchased my first pair of bifocals. A nightly walk instead of jogging represented Phase II. The rest of the plan shapes up like this:
Phase IV: Hair turns gray;
Phase V: Hair falls out; and
Phase VI: I die.
Understandably, I’m trying to hang onto my hair as long as possible, in order to forestall that final Phase.
At any rate, I’m now wearing contacts; ONE contact, to be precise, in my right eye. My left’s going AU NATUREL. The theory is, I’ll read with the right eye and check out coeds jogging past the office window with the left.
I was a little apprehensive about the idea of using only one contact, but it turns out it DOES work! I can read! Without glasses! Better still, I can see the coeds jogging past. (Thank you, girls of the FSU cross country teams.)
There have been some drawbacks, however. If you’ve never worn contacts, you may not fully appreciate the sacrifices involved. The first is, putting the lens in.
The nice lady at (free plug alert!) Optometric Associates helped me with my first try. Well, she didn’t actually HELP me, but she did patiently talk me through it.
It was strange, touching the one part of my body I’ve always been told NOT to touch. (Actually, one of TWO parts: The nuns at St. Isadore’s Catholic School warned me against touching the other.)
But eventually, I got used to the idea of intentionally poking my eye with my forefinger. In truth, it wasn’t as bad as I suspected it would be.
Taking the lens back OUT, on the other hand … THAT, I am sure, is one of the recreational activities offered in Dante’s seventh circle of Hell.
In an effort to remove the lens, and under the gentle guidance of the eye doctor’s assistant, I dug, I groped, I yanked, I augured, I pinched, I pulled … I did everything but go in there with blasting powder and a chainsaw.
And still the lens remained firmly attached to my eye, like a barnacle sucking the hull of an oil tanker.
Eventually – after what seemed hours (but was in truth, probably less than five minutes) – the lens did pop out. By this time, my eyeball bore a strong resemblance to the setting sun, but I didn’t care; the lens (can I get a hallelujah!) was OUT.
“OK, that’s good,” the nice lady said. “Let’s put it in again.”
I could have cried; was crying, in fact. But I did as she instructed. Then I took the lens out again. Then put it back in, popped it out, in, out, in, out … you get the idea.
By the time I left the optometrist’s office, I was a contact lens insertion and removal MACHINE!
So, THAT, at least, is no longer a problem.
The other downside to being able to see so well is … being able to see so well. Things once fuzzy and vague now leap out at me with crystal clarity. No longer do I see the world through an impressionistic gauze of soft colors and shapes. Everything is so … REAL. I see things TOO clearly, and that’s not always a good thing.
For instance, it turns out I’m fat. Who knew? I always assumed I was just – as my mother used to say – “big boned.” That may be true, but those bones are definitely covered in a formidable layer of blubber.
Also, I’m NOT married to Heather Graham. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, it would seem, is a DIFFERENT blond woman altogether! Not whom I thought at all. She’s still way too cute for me, so I’m not complaining, but you can imagine my shock at seeing her, as it were, for the first time.
Other things I’ve noticed with the help of my new contact lens: my car is an old pickup truck, NOT a Ferrari (gonna have to have a talk with the dealership about THAT one); I DO NOT live at the White House in Washington, D.C., but rather in A white house in Lakeview; I have ear hair; nose hair; and I am, possibly, LOSING some hair on my head.
So, all in all, the contact lens MIGHT be a good thing. Then again, it might not.
I’ll let you know next time some coeds jog by out front.

Learning the meaning of life from a couple dogs

I don’t know what it is about this time of year that gets me to thinking long thoughts. The naked, bleak trees under slate-gray skies, maybe, or the way the wind seems to slice straight through to the bone, leaving my mood exposed to every wayward thought, no matter how morose.
Once the leaves fall, then the snow, I for some reason start thinking about all the mistakes I’ve made in my life; the times I yelled at the kids, made rude gestures to passing motorists, forgot to call my mother on her birthday. Given but one overcast November afternoon, my mind ­- working without my express approval - can come up with an endless litany of petty crimes I’ve committed over the years.
They say an unexamined life isn’t worth living, but there’s another side to that story: A life examined a little TOO closely ain’t all that great, either. Rare is the man who has no regrets, and probably a sociopath as well.
Oh, sure, I know my sins, large and small, are pretty typical. Mundane, even. It’s hard to live 50 years without making some mistakes. But that doesn’t stop me from regretting them, at least in November.
Yet that’s only part of the story. I also get thinking about where I am in life, what I’ve accomplished. And more specifically, what I have not.
I do a lot of writing, for instance, aside from this cheesy column. Fiction, short stories, all the usual starving artist stuff; I even have a half-finished screenplay gathering dust on a hard drive somewhere, just like an L.A. wannabe screenwriter. I’ve sold a few things, not many. I could probably sell more, but I am - as The Lovely Mrs. Taylor would be happy to tell you - lazy and disorganized.
I’m also not especially ambitious. As long as I have a roof over my head and plenty to eat (with the emphasis on “plenty”) I’m happy.
Except in November. In November I start wondering why I haven’t done more with my life, haven’t “made something of myself.” (Whenever I think these thoughts, the voice in my head sounds very much like my old man. Go figure.) Anyway, if I let it get to me - which I sometimes do - the whole thing can get awfully depressing.
But this year something happened to change this gloomy annual event: a couple dogs chased me. A black lab and a yellow lab.
I live about 45 minutes south of town and my route in to work every day consists primarily of dirt roads populated almost exclusively by the Amish and myself. I could take a paved route, and every so often I do, but then I’d miss all the great scenery; the buggies, the chickens running loose in front yards, the fields of russet stubble left over from autumn’s harvest. And most importantly, if I took the paved roads, I’d miss the dogs.
The labs both live on a farm, near an intersection so close to the middle of nowhere it’s amazing anyone ever finds their way back out again. They’re both big, healthy-looking dogs, obviously well cared for.
The farm is about 50 yards east of the intersection and the dogs wait there every morning for my dusty pickup to come rumbling down the road, kicking up a cloud of cinnamon-scented dust in its wake if it’s been a dry week. When I get to the intersection, I always sit a moment; long enough to make sure the dogs have seen me.
They’ll both stand in the front yard, taking stock of my position, gauging the distance between my truck and themselves. And then - ka-wham! - they bolt out of that yard like twin streaks of furred lightning.
I hit the gas, just hard enough to keep a safe 20 feet or so between us, and drive north. The dogs gallop alongside the truck, tongues lolling, barking their fool heads off, having the time of their lives. Despite the barking, neither of them sounds anything remotely like hostile. We’re all taking part in the same game, and they’re just commenting on it.
If the dogs could speak, they’d be yelling, “Tag!” or “Ollie ollie oxen-free!” at the tops of their lungs. Then again, their barks convey that message just fine.
One day this past summer, just to see what would happen, I let the truck roll to a halt, opened the door and stepped out. The dogs, a little shy at first, eventually came up to me, sniffed my hands, then my feet, then … well, you know how dogs are; they’ll sniff anything if you let ‘em. They both allowed me to scratch behind their ears. They graciously accepted my compliments on their ability to outpace a Ford.
But they seemed a bit confused, and maybe a little disappointed, too. The game, after all, requires that I run, so they can chase me. If I stop, their goofy lab faces seemed to imply, they CATCH me, and where’s the fun in that? Getting scratched behind the ears and sniffing crotches is all well and good, but it’s the CHASE which gives meaning to life.
Of course, being dogs, they might not have been thinking those things at all, but from my human perspective, it certainly SEEMED that way.
So I hopped back in my truck and puttered off down the road, the big Labradors again in hot pursuit, barking fiercely. After a while, they gave it up and trotted back toward home, as they always do, content in a job well done.
It wasn’t until last week that I realized the dogs were no longer waiting for me every morning in their usual location. Two or three days had passed, in fact, since I’d seen either of them.
So instead of heading north from the intersection as I usually do, I turned east so as to drive past the farmhouse.
Sure enough, there were the dogs, tethered to a couple doghouses out back, looking forlorn but resigned to their fate. They both stood up when I drove by; the black lab managing a bark; I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The yellow just watched me pass.
Why, I wondered, had their owner tied them up today, when they were usually allowed to roam free over the sparsely populated countryside? By the time I got to the office I’d figured it out: Deer hunting season. A big old lab can look a lot like a doe on a foggy morning, especially to an inexperienced, young hunter. No sense taking chances.
So I imagine I’ll soon be seeing my two “running buddies” again, just as soon as hunting season’s over.
Anyway, the point - which I’ll readily admit has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle here - is this: Those two dogs never seem to worry about where they’re headed. They don’t worry about how far they’ve come, if they’ve arrived, or whether they should be going farther or faster than they are. They don’t worry about mistakes locked in the past’s immutable amber.
They just … run.
Unhampered by my purely human need to poke around in the dark corners of the psychological attic, those two slobbering hounds have come closer to finding the meaning of life than I ever will. They know it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey.
And if that journey includes making a big noise and feeling the wind in your hair, so much the better.
I think I’ll survive till spring.

Men must bear it all, once a year

It’s a little late to discuss Valentine’s Day issues, but I’m going to do so anyway. The specific issue I have in mind is: Valentine’s Day presents.
Choosing the right Valentine’s Day gift – one which makes any sort of sense – is a lesson in futility. There’s a reason for this: Women like stupid stuff. Especially on Valentine’s Day.
Even intelligent, professional women (I’m thinking here of The Lovely Mrs. Taylor) turn all goofy every Feb. 14. Mrs. T is mercifully less mushy than the average woman, but even SHE sets her sites on dopey gifts when Valentine’s Day rolls around.
I’m trying not sound like any more of a sexist oinker than I absolutely have to here, but REALLY, when did women decide that flowers make a great gift? Chocolate I can sort of understand – everyone knows they put some sort of girl-specific and highly addictive narcotic in there, probably a crack derivative of some kind.
And, I suppose, even FLOWERS make some sort of skewed sense. They DO smell nice and look pretty. But seriously, if it weren’t for the fact that women like them, men would NEVER, ever, ever buy flowers. For the price of a couple dozen roses, a man can get himself a pretty good Friday night on the town, a circular saw, three Jackie Chan DVDs or a million other things men like WAY better than flowers.
Then there’s jewelry. From a woman’s standpoint, jewelry makes a lot of sense. Women in the early “pre-marriage” stages of a relationship especially like receiving gifts of jewelry. After all, it’s pretty (shows he has good taste), it’s expensive (shows how much he loves me), it’s expensive (shows my girlfriends how much he loves me), it’s expensive (indicates he makes enough money to support me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed), and finally, it’s expensive.
Jewelry isn’t so much a gift as it is a job interview. For married couples, jewelry is a bribe – a husband’s desperate attempt to get his wife to think of him the way she used to before he said “I do.”
Even so, there’s some twisted, feminine logic to jewelry.
That, however, brings us to the REALLY dumb Valentine’s Day gifts. I’m talking now about the gifts which make absolutely NO sense whatever. The gifts so dumb that to call them dumb gives the word dumb a bad name.
Gifts like … teddy bears.
OK. For 364 days out of every year, The Lovely Mrs. Taylor is a bright, no nonsense woman with little patience for foolishness. She’s practical, straight-forward, and has an almost military bearing … pretty much the exact opposite of me, in fact.
She likes things straight-edged, cleared away and orderly.
And yet, as Valentine’s Day approaches, she starts wanting things like, well, like teddy bears. Little, cutesy teddy bears holding hearts imprinted with sayings like “I Wuv You THIS Much!” or “I Can’t BEAR to be Without You!”
Excuse me while I cough up a hairball…
There, that’s better.
Despite years of closely observing women (TOO closely, according to the judge who issued all those restraining orders), I have yet to figure out why ladies over six years old are enamored of teddy bears.
You’d think that if Mrs. T wanted something on the chubby side with a lot of body hair, I’d be enough for her.
But apparently teddy bears have a “cuteness” factor which is noticeably missing in me. At this stage of the game, it’s probably too late to change that.
So I guess I’ll keep doing what I did this past Valentine’s Day; buy the candy, buy the flowers, buy the teddy bear. If she wants jewelry, the bear can buy it for her.

The New 30, My Ass!

I read an Associated Press article the other day about aging. Apparently, it’s big news that twenty-somethings are now going to great lengths to maintain their youth. That’s right – twenty-somethings. Forget that time hasn’t had a chance to inflict its first crow’s foot, let alone “liver spot” on these children. Twenty-somethings are taking the pre-emptive strike in the war against Father Time via anti-aging creams, Botox, skin peels, sunscreen and “dermabrasion,” whatever that is (probably the same things as a skin peel, if my long ago Latin lessons still mean anything).
The article also stated that “50 is the new 30.” Apparently some “super-model” (Cheryl Tiegs or some other blonde who was considered way hot back when I was in college) is using this catch-phrase to sell makeup. Having recently turned 50 myself, I’m not so sure.
But if the statement is true, it means that when I was chronologically 30, I was actually 10. I was married to Wife Number One at the time, and I’m almost sure she would concur that I was, in fact, 10 years old – from the neck up.
Now, 20 years later, the Lovely Mrs. Taylor (aka #4) would happily attest that I am MUCH more mature now than I was then. I believe she would guess my emotional age at something between 13 and 15, though, if I am to be honest, I must admit her guess would probably gravitate toward the lower number.
At any rate, it boggles my mind that kids in their 20s are worried about looking old. When I was young, my biggest concern was whether my fake I.D. would get me past the bouncer of some sleazy Westside bar on a Saturday night. If I could have magically manufactured a few wrinkles, I certainly would have.
I spent most every summer day at the beach, sucking back as many UV, UVA, UVB, USA and MPA (okay, I’m making ‘em up now) rays as I could, future skin cancer problems be damned. In winter, I was on the ski slopes, dry, frigid breezes whipping over my wind-chapped face. I was YOUNG, and I was going to enjoy it while I could! I’m wrinklier now because of those days of youthful indiscretion, but I can honestly say it was worth it.
These days I figure anyone who doesn’t like my wrinkly face doesn’t have to look at it. I could add additional comments about the youth-obsessed feeling free to kiss my this or bite my that, but this is a family newspaper, so I won’t.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t harbor any animosity toward twenty-somethings preoccupied with maintaining their youth. I feel a little sorry for them, maybe, but that’s about it.
I mean, your 20s, even your early 30s, are the years you’re supposed to act foolishly, take chances, make mistakes. If you have to pay for it later on, so what? Better to die owing than with the balance sheet all squared away, if you take my meaning. (Which maybe you don’t, since I’m not sure EXACTLY what I mean myself.)
The point is – and I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere – youth ISN’T wasted on the young, except maybe those “young” so worried about their wrinkly future that they fail to enjoy their wrinkle-free present.
Sure, we’re living in a youth-obsessed culture. There’s no other way to explain Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. (Or whoever is popular with 13-year-old girls this week. Don’t know, don’t care.) But where will it all end?
When do they start marketing anti-wrinkle cream to grade-school kids? Or … is it too late by the time you hit first grade? Better to start moisturizing in pre-school. Or better yet, how about exfoliants added to diaper rash cream? Never too soon to start worrying about cellulite on the tush, right?
Brother.
For my part, I intend to continue spending whole sunny summer days fishing shirtless on my boat (regardless of complaints and/or disparaging comments from other fishermen). I intend to let my hair turn gray whenever it’s ready to (any day now, I’m sure). I intend to get fat (-ter) if that’s what the Good Lord has in store for me. And I will, to the best of my ability, not give a damn about any of it.
I will be just as happy to be old today as I was to be young 30 years ago. If 50 is the new 30 for Cheryl Tiegs, well, goody. For me, 50 is the new 50.
And for crying out loud, if you ARE twenty-something, just enjoy it and let tomorrow take care of itself.