I Want More Out of Life

It seems the older I get, the more I'm disappointed. One recent letdown arrived in the form of an email describing the grim details of my upcoming 50th high-school reunion, which until then I had planned on attending. You'd think that for those of us who are still alive, and with the means to travel and the ability to still walk, the doings would be pretty special. However, this is what is on the docket for the three-day event:

Friday night: A pizza party in the school gymnasium, no alcohol permitted on school grounds. Even though we are all 67 years old and some of us could die any minute, and that could be our last party.
Saturday: A walk around town, maybe with a town historian if there is such a person, to see the sights, of which there are none.
Saturday night: Cocktails and a buffet dinner at the local Best Western hotel.
Sunday morning: Nothing, but you are invited to have brunch with your friends on your own anywhere you like.

It went on: There might be pictures from the old days arranged in fancy frames in the gym, if somebody donates the frames. You maybe can have your picture taken in a 1964 model car, if someone has such a car and gets it there. There might be a golf game on Saturday if enough people are interested and want to play. Maybe that sounds good to someone, but not to me. Call me madcap, but I think after 50 years, we all deserve more fun than that.

The Real 9/11

It's back. September 11. It's a sad day, and certainly deserving of mention. So despite my proclamation of silence earlier this week, I have to chime in with a few words to commemorate the occasion. Let's hope that nothing else bad ever happens on any other September 11--that would be dreadful and confusing. Imagine the TV news shows trying to come up with a logo for the story: Son of 9/11? 9/11 Two?

Something else: My cat Daisy will be 18 years old on 9/11. In cat years that is ancient, old enough to make people's voices go up an octave and say things like, "I had an old cat once who lived to be 16." While Daisy still has all her teeth and a hearty appetite, and even runs around outside for a bit every day, she is mostly out of her mind. She cries a lot, a mournful wailing which would be chilling were it not so damn annoying. She sits in the same spot pretty much all the time, unless she's at the door wanting to go outside and come back inside for no reason except to get me up out of my chair. Anyway, I  wish her a happy birthday.

Suspension of Service

It has recently come to my attention that my particular life sucks. This is due in part to the luck of the draw, which I completely lack and always have, and the current state of affairs in America, which are degenerating every second thanks to the baboons running our government, and I do mean baboons. Because of these two separate but indisputable facts, I feel I am no longer fit to write a humor blog, or in fact any blog at all. Until such time as I have something amusing to say about anything, I am suspending publication of said blog. My hope is that said baboons will not bring about World War Three and thus I will be back soon. Until then, I hope things are going better for  you than they are for me.

Looking Forward

Both of my parents died in the very town where I grew up. My mother was just 62; my father 70. Their individual deaths were sad and painful for all concerned, and I certainly won't bum you out with the depressing details. The important thing is this: I have not returned to that town since 1986, and I have no intention of ever doing so. Which is why I was saddened and surprised to learn that my 50th High School reunion will be held right there, at the very same school in the very same town.

Surprised because this town is not Beverly Hills or Las Vegas or Miami Beach. It's not San Francisco or Los Angeles or Philadelphia, or even Chicago or St. Louis or Minneapolis. It's nowhere you ever heard of. What it does have going for it is the fact that it's just 25 miles from Manhattan, city of my birth and arguably the World's Greatest City. I go there often, and would certainly jump at the chance to attend my high-school reunion were it held there. But going back to that small town to have pizza and go bowling with a group of strangers who are all now 67 years old is not appealing, it's saddening, especially since there likely would be several people it would be fun to chat with, albeit superficially, for a few minutes.

And that's why I'm not going to my high-school reunion. But since we each need something special to look forward to in order to keep a spring in our step, I am going to Barcelona and Marseilles in December, and that's a pretty nice carrot to have dangling.

What's Wrong With Me?

I went to L. L. Bean today to buy a pair of jeans. The very same L. L. Bean that did not hire me to be a sales clerk, to sell jeans and boots and socks and sweaters to people just like me who come to buy. (Yes, I am still bitter.)

Upon entering the store, the first clerk I encountered was fatter than any person I have seen outside of a TV show. She must have weighed 350 pounds, and was severely unkempt and if I may say, quite unattractive. She was hired: I was not. Then when I checked out, the girl at the cash register had one arm--not that there's anything wrong with that. She was actually quite a pretty girl, about 25, but still she definitely had just the one arm; the other one ended in a stump at the elbow and was not useful to either of us. She had to take my credit card, ring up the sale and bag the merchandise. Naturally this took her somewhat longer than a person with two arms, like me to pick someone at random. Again, I was not hired and she was.

So now I am of course once again wondering what it was that kept me from being hired as a simple sales clerk, in possession of all limbs and quite presentable, and having been hired as Art Director at several newspapers, one in California, and a designer at numerous small studios and large corporations back in Washington, D.C. Go figure.

Drop That Donut!

Not more than anything, but almost more than anything, I love donuts. If I could, I would have a doughnut for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Well, to be honest I would have two or three for breakfast, and maybe two more for lunch and who knows, three for dinner if that's all I were having. Here in Freeport there is a place that is supposedly god's gift to doughnuts called Frosty's. It's not a new place, in fact it's an old, established leader in the doughnut world, but it's new here in Freeport. Anyway, I am always tempted to try one, since I pass by it almost daily, but I never have gone in. And here's why: because donuts make you fat, and being fat is gross. Besides ugly, fat is unhealthy. When you're fat, you can't breathe, surgeons won't operate on you even if you need the surgery, and nothing fits.

Yes, I know it is politically incorrect to say this. I know all about those fat-acceptance groups who claim that fat is beautiful and that fat people are targets of discrimination, and I want to say right here and now that it's a crime to take the only body God gave you and wreck it by stuffing candy and cookies and ice cream and doughnuts and all the rest of that sugary, salty, crunchy, oh-so-tasty junk food down your gullet like a Christmas goose, and that's the truth.

I am simply stunned when I see photos of formerly handsome and beautiful people who have gone this route. Sue me.

Tony vs. Rhoda

James Gandolfini made Tony Soprano lovable.

Last March I wrote a post entitled "Rhoda Is Dying and So Are You." It was about actress Valerie Harper, who announced at age 73 that she had just three months to live, or so she had been told eight months earlier by her doctors. An inoperable brain tumor was the culprit. She gave interviews on all the TV talk shows, appeared on the  covers of many magazines--the whole bit. Then she did not die in three months, which is certainly good if a tad embarrassing. Now today I hear she is going to be on the next season of Dancing with the Stars, which begins on September 16, so I guess she is planning to be around for at least twelve more days.

Now don't get me wrong--I loved Rhoda and I hate brain tumors. But really, if Valerie just wanted to reignite her flagging career, it seems she could have done it without the sob story. And PS, when actor James Gandolfini dropped dead out of nowhere at age 51 there was no warm-up, he just up and died. That's what I call class.

At One with the Universe

My son, with more than two-thirds of his life ahead of him, or maybe three-quarters God willing, is fearful of making the wrong career choice. I can't blame him. As America is perched on the brink of yet another war in another foreign land where people run around in curtains and flip-flops hurling rocks and firebombs in the streets to release their frustrations over the fact that there isn't really more to life, I too am considering employment possibilities. It's even slimmer pickings for people my age; after all, it's way too late for me to become a brain surgeon. And while I don't really know what I want to do, I am clear on what I don't want:
     1. I refuse to take a job that requires me to attend meetings of more than three people. Nothing gets done. There is just a lot of settling in, passing out of papers that will then be collected back at the end, pouring of coffee, choosing of donuts or maybe energy bars, and chitchat.
     2. I refuse to fill out an application detailing where I went to high school, college, etc. How can that matter now? As for listing my last six employers and their addresses and phone numbers, that's just silly: My last six employers have likely been dead for years.
     3. I cannot write for a website that requires me to submit ten articles of 600 words each every week, and get paid $5 per article. Do the math: 6,000 words for $50 is like basically nothing per word, or roughly less than a pittance.

So I remain unemployed. I read and paint and write. I walk. These are all good things, but in a capitalist society where money is the measure of success, I am a failure. This can be disheartening. The only positive spin is that I am able to relate to the universe of the downtrodden masses who are also unemployed. If you look at it in a certain way, that makes me at one with the universe. That's at least something. Now if I just throw in a few yoga classes, I'm downright enlightened.

And the Oscar Goes to....

Cate Blanchett contemplating a nervous breakdown....

People sure do different things with their given lives. Today, after five attempts in the past, or maybe four, former Olympian Diana Nyad achieved her (odd) dream and swam 110 miles from Cuba to Miami, without benefit of a shark cage. You just gotta ask: So? And also: Why? And perhaps, This helps anybody how?

Then I saw the new Woody Allen movie, Blue Jasmine. It contains proof that Woody's still got it, even though he is old and tired. More important, his latest leading lady, Cate Blanchett, is possibly the greatest actress who has ever lived. At least that's how I still feel two hours later. Together they tell a story, and it's fiction, and one can also ask "so?" and "why?"-- but somehow watching the film impacts one in mysterious ways, much more so than some lady swimming really far, even if she is 64. Shot lovingly in living color in the cities of San Francisco and Manhattan, both of which look ultra-glorious and foreign, Blue Jasmine is a tragicomedy about a Bernie Madoff-like swindler and his wife who go from riches to rags--and worse. It's about how money isn't everything unless you have a lot of it, and then it's the only thing.

The usual unusual characters that populate any Woody Allen film fill the screen, giving it their all. Superstar Alec Baldwin plays the bad guy with great reserve; in a welcome departure from the norm he does not steal any scenes, and instead is the foil for a number of people you've likely never heard of. But the true star is the script, which is full of pithy lines that will stick in your head long after it's over. This one made me laugh out loud, even though it came at a serious moment in the story: "Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown--there’s only so many traumas a person can withstand until they take to the streets and start screaming."

That is so true.

Rejecting the Good Old Days

My millionth high school reunion is scheduled for next May and I was planning to go, really I was, until I realized something important: I don't want to. This is unfortunate since it's traditionally a great motivator for weight loss; heck, I could lose 15 pounds by then if I put my mind to it. Also, there are a few people who will be there that I actually like, and when I say "a few" I mean three. But really, I can see Diane, Rick and Melva anytime, without flying to New York and driving out to Long Island and getting a hotel room to attend a dinner in some cavernous restaurant and make chitchat with the other 300 I never even talked to back when we were all so much better looking.

Besides the dreary prospect of that rubber chicken dinner and an oldies band playing hits from the 60s, there's the inevitable sadness over lost youth reflected in every Botoxed face and protruding paunch. Added to all that is the fact that my high school flame wasn't even in my graduating class, so he won't be in attendance even if he is still alive.

If only there were such a thing as a Future Reunion! Instead of looking back, I'd jump at the chance to meet those people I have yet to meet who might offer the possibility of friendship, good times, or even just a meaningful conversation. Put me down for that.

Wagging the Syrian Dog

I write this blog daily so I know I woke up this morning, am still alive, and not in surgery or the ER or a coma. Some people read it every day too, and I appreciate that. For all I know their reasons are similar, although some might do it in search of a laugh, or perhaps to see if I say anything outrageous like that I hate Obama because he is black, which of course I never would say because I don't feel that way. In fact, the only thing I actually like about Obama is that he is black. I'm proud that we elected a black president, I just wish he were doing a better job. And now he seems to be doing even worse than usual, perching us on the brink of a brand new war with Syria. So while today's blog post is really just about today's blog post and that's it, let's all keep our fingers crossed--or pray if that works for you--that some of Obama's hundreds of consultants will talk him down from the ledge.