Out of Mothballs

Yes, that’s me and yes, I’m back. It’s been five long years since I’ve written this blog and now here I am, back again. I am back because I’m publishing my awesome novel, Beauty and Other Vices, on Amazon and in order for an awesome new writer to sell his or her awesome new book, one must shamelessly (but oh so awesomely) crow about one’s absolute awesomeness via every possible free media outlet. You will soon be awesomely sick of hearing from me.

So, where the hell have I been? I’ve been here, doing the usual stuff we all do, work, play, getting married, getting a masters degree, getting the kids out of high school, getting drunk, getting lucky, getting not so lucky . . .

In all honesty, I stopped blogging because coming up with new ideas every week is tough! And writing is tough! And being funny is tough! And Game of Thrones premiered on HBO!

I had an easy out, going back to school to get the government-mandated master’s degree, so I took it and then it was just another thing and another thing, and then five years had gone by and now I’m 50! So, I figure I’ll give it another crack and shamelessly self-promote my book and everyone will love it and buy it and a movie will be made and I can make a cameo appearance like Alfred Hitchcock or Peter Jackson and I can attend the Oscar Ceremonies where the Oscar will Go To Me for Most Awesome Screenplay and I can retire and write more awesome books and make more cameo appearances and have more Oscars Go To Me . . .

Ahhh – Livin’ the Grammatically Butchered Dream. (Remember when Cher balked at “the Oscar Goes To” and said, the more direct and correct, “the Winner Is?”)

So, tune in next week sports fans for more insightful and awesome musings about things of which I feel like writing, not the least of which will be my awesome book, Beauty and Other Vices!

Ode to summer

So, it had to happen. Summer had to end. Unfortunately, it’s just ending too soon.

I love summer. I love everything about it. Except Triple E. I hate Triple E. Triple E is the one thing I do not love about summer.

(A brief aside: for those of you fortunate enough not to live in southeastern Massachusetts, below sea and I.Q. level, Triple E is Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a mostly fatal virus transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito. And even if you manage to survive, you are left in such a state that you pretty much probably wish you were dead.)

Triple E, in a word, sucks.

But I digress.

I love summer. I love the heat, the bare feet, the sleeping later than 5:30 a.m., the staying up past 10 p.m., the wearing of the bathing suit all day, the tanned skin, the birds in the morning, the peepers at night, the dripping watermelon, the beefy tomatoes, the sweet corn, the kids’ laughter outside…

But I think if I had summer all year long I’d be dead.

I Love summer.

I Love summer with a Vengeance.

I am to summer what Lance Armstrong is (or was) to the Tour de France. Unfortunately, I do not have the benefit of controlled substances so, I am, therefore, exhausted.

Every day in the summer I wake up and say, yes, I literally say this out loud: What are we going to do today?

It’s like I’m on that old game show, Beat the Clock, and I have to get in as much fun as possible before the autumnal equinox. I am that crazed contestant in that money wind machine, snatching at summer days like they’re one hundred dollar bills.

All I can think is, summer is short don’t waste it.

DON’T WASTE IT!

It’s like I was raised in the Great Summer Depression and had to go without July. Like every hour of summer is a shaving of soap and I must scrounge up every one I can get and work it into a good lather.

And this summer was tough. It didn’t rain once. All right, maybe once, but that was the day we went to laser tag until midnight.

Every day I woke up, secretly hoping, wishing for just one rainy day…rolled over and saw the sun. Half of me was happy, the other half resigned, but determined.

Must go on, must have fun, must go play beach volleyball.

I am to summer what Arnold Schwarzenegger is to Sarah Connor.

Now you know why there hasn’t been any words written in this space since May. The sun came out.

I am to summer what a gerbil is to his exercise wheel.

And, I have to be honest, I am ready to get off.

I’m ready for the cool nights, that clean snap in the air, the colored leaves, pumpkins and hardy mums. The new season of Survivor.

I know, I’m breaking the Cardinal Rule of Summer, wishing it away, but I need a break.

I need a vacation from my summer vacation.

It’s like I’ve been in Vegas for the past nine or so weeks, except instead of gambling and drinking I’ve been hiking, swimming, biking, camping, and barbecuing.

I am to summer what Wayne Newton is to Las Vegas and I have a summer hangover.

But, in the meantime, I have one day left.

And the sun is out…

A Rock and A Hard Place

So, it’s springtime and a not-so-young-anymore woman’s thoughts turn to flights of fancy and…yard work.

Yeah, that’s where I’ve been oh these long weeks. Out in the yard. Working. No more sitting in the house. Blogging.

I had a pool put in last summer and, while I love my pool to the point of actual physical desire, I miss my back yard.

Once upon a time, I had this really great back yard. It was one of the main reasons I bought my house. The lawn was green and lush and quite picturesque. Just the kind of lawn that made you want to break out in cartwheels.

Now all I’m breaking out in is the sweats and back spasms.

You see, my formerly picturesque, green and lush back yard now more closely resembles the post-apocalyptic landscape beyond the Thunderdome.

Or the surface of the moon.

But with more rocks.

I never knew that there were this many rocks on Earth, never mind in my back yard. It’s like one of the ten plagues of Egypt. The Rock Plague.

And I could wander around back there for 40 years, picking up rocks and still not get them all.

The Taliban would love my back yard. They could stone all kinds of people back there and never run out of ammunition.

I told my son I would pay him twenty-five cents per rock that he picked up. He liked the idea until he discovered that picking up rocks was a lot like work. He quit after about 12 rocks.

So now, the rocks just sit there. Mocking me.

I cannot bring myself to pick up these rocks. It truly is like a plague. Or like plucking gray hair. You pick up one rock and ten more rocks appear in its place.

It’s just too disheartening, so my new strategy is to simply concentrate on the front yard, ignore the rock plague in the back yard and wait and see what grows back there.

Something will grow. It’s inevitable. There’s already quite a congregation of dandelions back there wagging their snowy afros at me.

Why is it always dandelions? And crab grass?

Nothing ever grows that you want to grow and if it does, it never grows where you want it to grow.

It’s like my yard is a middle-aged bald man. No grass grows where he wants it to, on his head. But random, unruly patches are sprouting all over his back, neck and shoulders. 

To tell the truth, even my front lawn is a mess. It looks great from a distance, but up close, it’s another matter entirely. Kind of like Cameron Dias.

And it’s a shame really because I used to have a beautiful lawn.

Back when I didn’t live there.

I remember when I first looked at my house. I was so impressed with the lawn. It was so thick, so green, so lush. It was obvious that the people who owned this house were lawn people.

You know those people, those lawn people. They are of a different breed, like bird people or reptile people.

You can always tell a reptile person’s house because they have that one window with that creepy, poltergeist light glowing out into the night. There are only two explanations for a light like that: some kind of cold blooded reptile pet or a grow operation.

Either way it’s a lifestyle.

Lawn people have a lifestyle. It’s sort of like a priest’s lifestyle.

Lawn people are completely committed to their lawn. Lawn people have sacrificed everything to their lawn. Lawn people never go away. Lawn people are always home. Lawn people get up early and work in the yard all day. Lawn people do not hire outsiders to tend to their lawn. Lawn people are well versed in the proper application of Scotts products and can recite passages from the directions on the back of the bag. Lawn people have big, shiny lawn tractors with all kinds of big, shiny attachments.

Lawn people use words like putter.  

Now there’s a word that is the exact opposite of onomatopoeia.

Putter around the yard. Puttering implies some level of pleasure. Some level of fun.

I don’t putter around my yard.

I work my ass off. I slave away. I get filthy dirty.

And I sweat a lot.

Puttering congers up images of flowery gardening gloves and rubber clogs and iced tea.

I got none of that.

I got rocks.

A whole lot of rocks.

Yup, I am Charlie Brown and it is Halloween and it is going to be a long night.

All the Little Things

I cannot, for the life of me, think of anything particularly amusing to write about this week.

All that’s been going on around these parts is the Big Flood. The National Disaster. The National Guard people and Humvees at every corner, sand bags and detours and fish all confused, swimming in the street.

And lots and lots of people in lots and lots of pain over the loss of their homes, belongings, peace of mind.

There’s just nothing funny about that.

I had this same problem following the earthquake in Haiti. How can I write some goofy column when so many are dead, dying, suffering?

The world is a terrible place. The world is a wonderful place. It just depends on what kind of day you’re having.

I like to think of this column as one of the small good things that can maybe provide a smile, a LOL or maybe even a LMAO!

One of my students asked me not too long ago how to be happy. I told him I don’t know.

I think happiness is an individual thing. Kind of like your eye color, or your target heart rate.

But I told him what works for me.

I am able to maintain a healthy degree of happiness by remembering to enjoy all the little things. After all, you can’t count on too many great, big happy things, not every day can be Christmas morning, but there are all kinds of little happy things, little unnoticed miracles, all day long, pretty much every day.

Like kids barefoot and laughing and catching fish in the middle of Route 18 – right smack in the middle of a National Disaster.

So, back then, when the earthquake happened, and my student was trying to find a way to be happy, I felt compelled to compile a list of all the little things in life that make me happy:

Russel Crowe

Clive Owen

70 degree day in March

“Survivor”

“Project Runway”

“Sex in the City”

“House”

dogs

cats

some people

cartwheels

Manhattans

Harpoon IPA

margaritas

wine – all kinds

matzoh ball soup

those little umbrellas you put in drinks

hot tub

hot shower

Tabasco sauce

the Heat Meiser and all those claymation Christmas shows

a big, fat, orange, rising June full moon

sunrise, sunset

Susan Boyle when she sang on that show

Netflix

iTunes

Facebook

Newbury Comics

“Charlotte’s Web” the book

riding the chairlift with my kids

riding the chairlift without my kids

Christmas Eve

Yankee Candles

Pixar movies

bare feet

fresh cut grass

snow men

kickboxing class

making a great spinning CD

singing really loud in the car

heated seats

Fenway Park

sunglasses

patio tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar

the frogs in summer

Fluff

pajamas

Milky Way ice cream

a fire – indoors our outdoors

jumping on the trampoline

texting

leaf blowing

the end of school bell

my morning coffee

coming home

And so on and so on.

And that’s all I can think of lately when I drive past these homes that are now sitting in the lake and see all the things ruined and lost.

Sometimes all you have are the little things.

And a lot of the time, if you string them all together you can make one big happy.

So, if you have your own list of all the little things, please comment back and post it. I could use another smile today.

fortysomething

So, a few people have come up to me this week asking: “Where’s your blog?”

Can I just say, for the record, that I hate that word – blog. Sounds like something you might pull out of your nose. Why can’t it just be a column, like in the newspaper? Why, just because this compilation of words exists on the world-wide-web of deceit, must it be renamed to sound like a personal matter?

Blog? You might want to talk to your OB/GYN about that.

Anyway, where’s my column, I mean, blog, this week? Well, I told these few people that it was my birthday and I was taking the week off. I certainly couldn’t tell them that I was, in fact, still recovering from my birthday weekend in New York City and had not yet reestablished the necessary neural connections to put pen to paper. I mean type to screen.

That’s the trouble with being 45. I still use terms like pen and paper. And column.

And it takes me a week to recover from New York City.

Yes, I admit it. I over did it in the Big Apple on my birthday weekend. Too much Little Italy, too much Irish Pub. Too much and much, much too late at night.

I went to New York to meet up with a group of old college friends. We all attended college during the Reagan administration. Now we all look like someone in the Reagan administration.

It’s so weird, growing older. I don’t really mind being 45. I find the whole thing rather humorous, actually. And I just can’t believe it, somehow. I’m Forty-Five. I remember my mom when she was in her forties. She was so much older than me, so in charge, so sure of what to do, so Grown Up.

Now I’m the Grown Up.

Sometimes I’m appalled that I’m the Grown Up. That I’m in charge. That I’m the one pushing the grocery cart.

And then some other times I’m psyched that I’m doing it. That it’s actually working! I feel like Mary Tyler Moore at the beginning of my own show, throwing my beret in the air, “You’re gonna make it, after all!”

How did this happen? How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house!

It is a true fact that the human mind cannot imagine living in a body that is older than 29, so it just ignores the whole thing.

Your mind says “You’re 12! Do a cartwheel!”  So, you do a cartwheel, except you’re not 12, you’re 45 and your back goes out and your butt crack shows.

Your 29-year-old mind says, “Go to New York and stay up ‘til one in the morning!” So, you go to New York and stay up ‘til one in the morning and it takes a week for your mind to dry out and six days in the gym trying to shrink your butt back down to the size of Little Italy.

I don’t belong in New York City on a Saturday night at one in the morning. Who am I kidding? I haven’t seen one in the morning since O.J. was on trial. And I haven’t seen this many people in one place since the last faculty meeting. A big night for me these days is having two glasses of wine on a Friday and actually remaining vertical long enough to stand up and stagger to bed.

I should’ve gone to New York for my twenty-fifth birthday, not my forty-fifth. Twenty years ago I could’ve stayed up all night. Twenty years ago I wanted to stay up all night. When I was in my twenties, all I wanted to do was stay up.

Now all I want to do is go to bed.

But back then, I never wanted to go to bed. I always figured that the minute I went to bed, something amazing would happen and I would miss it.

Now, in my forties, I understand that amazing things are a rare occurrence and if they do occur they certainly never occur in any of the hours after 10 p.m. In fact, nothing good ever happens after 10 p.m. and if It does, I can always DVR it.

I spent more nights in my twenties staying up waiting to see what amazing, cool thing was going to happen. I spent a decade of my life like Linus in his pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

You block head.

It’s funny how your priorities change as you get older. When I was younger, all I wanted to be was famous. A famous writer. A famous actor. A famous singer. A famous anything. I didn’t care about the money. All I wanted was fame, for everyone to know my name.

Now, in my forties, all I want is money. The hell with fame. Leave me alone. I vant to be alone, dahlink. I want to be the J.D. Salinger of rich people. I don’t want anyone to know who I am. I just want them to send money. Preferably large bills.

In my twenties, I was always looking for The One. My Soul Mate. That One Special Man who I knew would make my life complete.

In my forties, I now realize there is no One Special Man. There’s the One Man You Can Stand. And, if you’re lucky, he’s rich. Or at least handy around the house.

In my twenties, I never made my bed. Now I make my bed every morning. I make my bed on weekdays and on weekends. I make my bed religiously. Making my bed borders on a religious experience. I make my bed because I love sleeping.

In my twenties I did not love sleeping. Sleeping was just an annoying interruption to the oh, so many amazing things I had to stay up for. Like watching my best friend light her cigarette backwards.

Now I love sleep. When I get into bed at night, I literally make audible sounds of pleasure. When I get into bed, it’s like it’s the Fourth of July and the fireworks are exploding over the Charles River. Ooooh. Aaaahh.

Overall, I gotta say, that I like being fortysomething. I like where I am in my life. It’s like I can finally relax. It’s a very satisfying, Zen kind of thing.

Or maybe it’s just my muscles atrophying.

Multi-Tasking Mama

So, I’m getting dressed the other morning at about 5:30 a.m. No, I’m not in the military nor do I keep any livestock, though my job is a bit of a hybrid of both, I’m a public high school teacher.

I like to start my day entertained, so I have Fox 25 on in the background. Well, following a highly entertaining story about a Chihuahua being pulled, literally, from the jaws of death, death in this case taking the shape of a free-range, Australian python, Kim Carrigan comes on with a story about a recent study that shows women need about 20 more minutes of sleep than men because women are Multi-Taskers.

Multi-Taskers. Sounds like what the Cat in the Hat was doing on his ball with a rake, and a cake, and a fish on his hat. Look at me, look at me, look at me now!

The Cat in the Hat, the original Multi-Tasker. Oddly enough, he’s a male, proof positive that this is a children’s story.

As I am, in fact, a woman and I am actually engaged in the act of multi-tasking as Kim Carrigan speaks – dressing and listening to the news and drinking coffee and thinking about how it’s Friday and that means casual Friday and I don’t know if these jeans will make my butt look too big…Look at me, look at me, look at me now! – I feel comforted by the knowledge that it’s not just the United States government that is throwing away perfectly good money.

But, they could’ve just asked me and saved themselves a bundle.

It is a true fact that most women do more before 9 a.m. than most men do all day, so, of course it only seems right that we should get that extra 20 minutes.

Twenty minutes. Big deal. That’s not even a re-run episode of Friends.

I loved that show. In fact, I loved that whole ‘90s Must-See-TV lineup. Except for Caroline in the City. Notice how you never see a Caroline in the City re-run?

Multi-Tasking. Sounds like something you should not attempt without a helmet. Or the proper immunizations. Or maybe multi-immunizations.

Even now, I am Multi-Tasking.

Look at me, look at me, look at me now!

Injecting obscure and random ‘90s TV trivia into this very blog. Kind of like watching Family Guy.

According to this, no doubt, highly scientific study, women’s brains are hard-wired so that they can perform several tasks at once.

This is good news in Vegas.

And in some areas of New Jersey.

I could’ve told them that. Any woman I know could’ve told them that. Women go out of their way to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. They have to because the men can’t.

Got some laundry to do? Well, better put it in and then go out and mow the lawn and while you’re at it, put on your headphones so you can review that Mandarin Chinese dialect you’re learning. And don’t use the ride-on mower, use the push mower so you can get in a good cardio workout.

You see this same behavior in the wild. Female lions taking care of the babies, hunting for food, going to the watering hole, chasing off the hyenas…and what are the male lions doing? Lying back in their Acacia tree recliners licking themselves in places human males can only dream of and wondering when dinner is going to be ready.

My ex-husband can’t even yell at the kids in the back seat of the car when the radio is on. He has to turn it off and then yell at them. It’s a miracle he can even have the kids in the car and keep the car on the road.

I, on the other hand, being a woman and all, cannot only admonish my children in the backseat with the radio on, but I can reprimand them in time to the music, inserting relevant, scolding lyrics into whatever tune is playing and belt it out with just the right amount of intimidating feeling, all the while driving with one hand and using the other to confiscate their electronic devices and summarily beat the two hooligans about the head with them.

The car is a great place for multi-tasking of this kind. Where else can you get so much accomplished while moving closer to Walmart?

And the car provides the perfect environment for talking on the phone. There is no more satisfying experience for the true multi-tasker than talking on the phone while driving. It’s like your own portable phone booth. Imagine how many more disasters Superman could have prevented if only he’d had a car and a cell phone.

I don’t even use my home phone anymore. I’d shut if off if not for the white trash implications and the Comcast Triple Play (insert hysterical laughter here) Discount. My home phone is more decorative than functional at this point. Sort of like an exotic relic hanging on the wall, like those old intercom systems in the ‘70s, a quaint reminder of a bygone era when one had to communicate at zero RPMs.

Historically, the car has been a great place for multi-tasking of many kinds, but with talking on the phone and driving one does not incur the worrisome rabbit nor humiliating field sobriety test.

There are men out there who can do more than one thing at a time. You’ve seen them. The guys with the car with the Bondo on the left front panel and the purple neon lights underneath. Or the guy with the half-painted house and the blue tarp curtains. Or the guy with the deflated Nativity Scene on the right front lawn and the radioactive Easter eggs hanging from a tree on the left front lawn.

This is not multi-tasking. This is undiagnosed ADHD.

Remember how the Cat in the Hat trashed the place? Remember how neat and orderly everything was before mom left?

Look at me, look at me, look at me now!

And, like a typical man, he has to bring in some machine to do the clean up job for him.

And, you know as well as I do, that he wrapped up that ridiculous contraption and gave it to his wife for Mother’s Day.

The Cleavage Assembly

So, I pick up my son at school the other day and he gets in the car, all disgusted with this bad-smell look on his face, and he tells me all about this assembly he just attended, an assembly that shall here and forever after be known as: The Cleavage Assembly.

Yes, The Cleavage Assembly.

Only in this day and age could there be such a thing as The Cleavage Assembly.

Now, my son is a bit young for his age. My son, thankfully, has yet to discover the many apparent delights and mysteries found in The Cleavage. Aside from Megan Fox, my son exhibits little interest in the opposite sex and remains instead fixated on killing things with his thumbs and talkin’ smack on X-Box Live. This, of course, is fine with me.

“DO NOT LOOK AT THE CLEAVAGE. DO NOT TOUCH THE CLEAVAGE. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT THE CLEAVAGE.”

This from my son, pretending to be the middle school principal, sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was still terminating. The principal at my son’s school used to be a prison guard or a drill sergeant or something like that and he has the mean looking earring and barbed wire bicep tattoo to prove it.

But what else is there to say, really? You have to keep it simple for boys. It is a true fact that boys in middle school cannot understand more than seven words in a row, unless, of course, you’re supporting an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launcher on your shoulder.

“The Cleavage.”

This is how my son refers to it now. Like The Cleavage is wrestling professionally.

“And in this corner, weighing in at a fascinating and flirtatious four pounds, able to hypnotize and handicap any man in a single bound: The Cleavage!”

The Cleavage. Sounds like some horror movie monster that creeps out from under your bed at night, attaches itself to your face and replicates your DNA turning you into something unnatural like Tori Spelling or Kenny Rogers.

My son goes on and on in his principal/Arnold voice and I listen, fascinated by my tax dollars at work.

Half of me wants to laugh. Half of me wants to cry. When did The Cleavage become polite conversation at the middle school level? When did The Cleavage rear its ugly head in the lower grades?

Back in my day, there was no cleavage. Anywhere. Well, maybe on my father’s calendar in the garage, but that was about it. And there certainly wasn’t any cleavage at the middle school. Nobody had any boobs. And if anyone did, they certainly didn’t bring them to school.

I think I remember one girl who had, shall we say, matured faster than the rest of us. One girl. She was very popular.

Now everyone is very popular. Everyone is maturing a mile a minute. Is this evolution at work? And if so, to what end?

I read an article recently about how the average IQ is dropping. Is there a correlation here? The average IQ is dropping, the average cup size is growing and all the guys’ pants are all falling down.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe hot bodies cannot coexist with big brains.

And shouldn’t cleavage be reserved for us older women? Why are all these tweenagers showing up at school like they’re going to entertain the troops?

I remember buying clothes for my daughter when she was little. Back in the good old days when I still had some control and some money left. Everything was delightful little cupcake dresses and lace ankle socks.

And then she hit seven years old. At seven years old, she no longer fit in the clothes in the girls’ section. We were then summarily ousted from the garden and forced to shop in the slut, I mean, Tween section of Macy’s.

The Tween market, for those of you in the large boob/small brain category, or for those of you fortunate enough to be hanging onto some of your hard earned money because you decided against continuing your blood line, is a stupid name to define the consumer market between the ages of eight and 12 years old. Apparently, some advertising executive decided this is the optimum age wherein to train little girls to dress like hookers. Funny he didn’t realize that the moms are the ones with the cash.

I couldn’t believe it. One day, it was Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, the next the Red Light District.

I know the school has a dress code. My school has a dress code. The problem is no one follows it. Between the girls and their Hollister tank tops and the boys with their pants falling down it’s a miracle anyone has anything on at all.

And it is a challenge, to say the least, to enforce the dress code. How does a teacher tactfully address the issue of someone’s daughter’s over exposed torso area? Seems to me, in this litigious day and age, just broaching that particular subject could result in any number of unwanted outcomes, not the least of which involves the Fox 25 news crew.

And, then, of course, there’s the issue of the kids’ right to self expression. There’s about 10 jokes to be made here, but I’m not touching it.

So, what is a poor 12 year old boy to do? I don’t know. I guess he could take the age old advice and keep his nose in his books.

Or hope for six more weeks of winter.

Grown Ups in Garanimals

So I’m on the sofa Sunday night, lamenting the end of February vacation and wondering how it can be that the jeans that fit me last week don’t fit me anymore. Is it possible that I really ate that much over vacation? Drank that much? Did the Chinese buffet put me over the edge? And when, exactly, did my butt turn into a booty?

Since I’d rather not think about it and I’m already hungry again having just left the Chinese buffet a scant half-hour ago, I try a diversionary tactic – I open up People magazine.

Yes, People magazine. When you’re sitting on the sofa all fat and depressed there is no better reading than People magazine. Well, all right, maybe the Star or In Touch, but such publications should be used sparingly and only in the direst of circumstances. Like if you’re going to be spending a few days in the hospital.

So, People magazine has a story this week about some director guy who got kicked off a plane because he is too fat to fit in the seat. I find this strangely ironic considering the ominous presence lurking right beneath me on the sofa, so I read the story.

Seems Mr. Director Guy originally bought two seats on the plane because he is both rich and fat, but then decided to cheap out and go stand-by. Unfortunately, one does not stand-by on a plane, one has to sit-by other people and, again unfortunately, Mr. Director Guy is of such a large variety of director that one seat does not provide sufficient space with which to contain him.

Should Mr. Director Guy have to buy two seats when he flies? Of course he should. He’s huge, gigantic, Ginormous. No one wants to sit next to someone who doesn’t have the common decency to stay in his or her own seat.

This is Kindergarten Manners 101. I have my bubble, you have your bubble. You keep your side boobs out of my personal space and I’ll keep my big booty out of yours. Seems an equitable arrangement.

But, I think People magazine has missed the real story here. The real story here has nothing to do with Mr. Director Guy’s excess self. It’s his clothes. His wardrobe. His big, Baby Huey, mentally ill toddler suit.

I do not understand what is going on with men and their clothes these days. I mean, Mr. Director Guy is not the first man/mentally ill toddler I’ve seen. But he’s a Director Guy! He’s a famous, Hollywood Director. What the hell is he thinking in his dungaree Man Capris, little skater-boi sneakers, oversized sports fanatic T-shirt, and New York Devils fanzie jacket?

He looks like Spanky from “The Little Rascals” only updated and super-sized with glasses and a full beard. All he needs is a beanie and a sidekick with a cowlick and a crush. Maybe that’s the look he’s going for. “Mentally Ill Toddler is so last year. It’s Super-Sized Spanky for spring!”

Apparently the airline would not let Mr. Director Guy on the plane because they seemed to think he posed a danger to others.

Well, duh! Just look at him!

Who would let this guy near a plane, let alone on the plane? Do overgrown, mentally ill toddlers get to fly alone? Don’t they need an escort? Or at least TSA clearance? Shouldn’t someone this deranged looking be on the terrorist watch list? I mean think of all the incendiary devices he could conceal within the folds of those Man Capris. For all the flight crew knew, he might have had Pixie Sticks packed with powdered explosives pasted into the crotch of his Power Rangers Underoos.

Mr. Director Guy is 39-years old. 39 years old! That’s pretty much middle age to you and me, yet he dresses like his mommy just matched the top and bottom purple gorillas together on the Garanimals rack. Is this what happens to fashion once you reach a certain weight? Is this all there is for the Big and Tall Man in the 21st century? What’s next, Onesies?  Rompers? Really, really big Looney Tunes overall shorts?

Another popular look for the adult American male is the Fisher Price Kid. You remember those little toys we all had when we were actual toddlers. Those Little People that lived in all those cool cribs: the awesome A-Frame, the hip Houseboat, the phat Farm with the door that mooed.

There’s one Fisher Price Kid in particular that seems to have inspired an entire generation of male fashionistas – that one punk-ass Kid with the freckles and angry eyebrows and his baseball cap all crooked on his head. That mo-fo Fisher Price Kid was so bad ass he could kill you. Literally. If you just so happened to put him in your mouth, you could choke on him, beeotches.

That particular Fisher Price Kid is long gone. Little People Land has no place for teeny-tiny wangstas and I don’t remember any teeny-tiny Section Eight Housing either.

And yet we get stuck with a fashion legacy of oversized, over-embellished baseball caps balanced askew on too many balding heads.

I think it’s safe to say if you’re old enough to open up a 401k you’re old enough to take off the cap. Or, at the very least, turn it around and peel off the gold sticker.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

So, it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m thinking I should write something about love and all of that, but since this topic remains a mystery to me, I must defer to the experts, so I go to Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com has 28 definitions for the word love. Love has 28 definitions. Hate only has five. Seems hate is easy to nail down.

Love is more elusive. Some of the better love definitions: 1) a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; 2) a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend; 3) Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing.

Tennis scoring is almost as much a mystery to me as love. But at least in tennis you have officials. In love, there’s nobody to keep you in line.

Of course, there’s also definition 3) sexual passion or desire.

Dictionary.com gives sex eight definitions. And they’re all real scientific-like: 1) either the male or female division of a species, esp. as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions; 2) the sum of the structural and functional differences by which the male and female are distinguished, or the phenomena or behavior dependent on these differences; 3) the instinct or attraction drawing one sex toward another, or its manifestation in life and conduct.

Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

Huh? What the? Manifestation in life and conduct? Sounds like someone has contracted something itchy.

I have never understood this. Love is all mystical and gooey and violins and profoundly tender and passionately affectionate, but sex is always male/female/genitalia/reproduction/propagation of the species. It’s like you have to put on a lab coat and safety goggles just to discuss boinking.

Seems to me sex gets way more consideration than love. You’d think sex would get less press since, by definition, it’s so boring and academic. But everyone, it seems, is obsessed with sex. Sex sex sex. And I’ve thought this for a long time now. This is not because I’m getting old and cynical or because the BBC recently reported that the G-spot doesn’t exist, it’s because something changed somewhere along the way and suddenly sex is the only game in town.

I think it all started with “Three’s Company.” Or maybe “The Love Boat.” I can’t remember, but I’m sure disco was involved. But now sex is all there is. It’s the only funny topic on T.V. I think every episode of “Friends” centered on sex and I don’t really need to say anything more than, “Two and a Half Men.”   

It’s too bad, really. There are all kinds of funny things going on in the world, but all we get is sex. Remember “The Mary Tyler Moore Show?” She didn’t even have a man! No sex going on in Minneapolis. Well, at least not in Mary’s apartment. Mary had bigger fish to fry. “Love is all around, no need to waste it, you could have the town, why don’t you take it.” Who needs sex when you can have Minneapolis? Or Mr. Grant?

And “The Bob Newhart Show.” I think that might have been one of the first T.V. shows where the married couple even got to be shown in bed together. Or maybe it was “The Brady Bunch.” It’s really a shame that none of those couples were having sex. They all looked so dashing in bed together. No one looks like that in bed now. No one has matching pajama sets or groovy shags. It’s all bare chests and Botox.

I don’t even know what to say about music. Back in the olden days, the 1970s, sex was in code. I only recently learned that “Shook Me All Night Long” wasn’t about dancing. And that “Afternoon Delight” had nothing at all to do with a picnic.

Kids in my high school are required to take Health class wherein they learn all about sex. The kind of sex heretofore defined. The sex where there are male and female genitalia and you should dress one of them up before the two shall meet, thereby avoiding any of that itchy manifestation stuff, or the plague.

I asked my students if love is ever mentioned in Health class. Nope. You can’t say love or Jesus in school.

I don’t get it. Just another aspect of this whole love/sex conundrum that baffles me. If you’re going to teach kids about their parts and how to wield them safely, shouldn’t you, maybe, mention that, in certain circles, people have been known to have sex when they are in love. You know, like the shin bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the heart muscle is connected to the nether regions.

But the heart cannot compete with the nether regions. The heart doesn’t have the junk in the trunk. These days, it’s nether regions: 20 – heart: love. Health class has no time for the heart, for love. Health class has enough on its hands with SAFE SEX.

Safe sex, safe sex, safe sex. How ‘bout safe love? No one ever talks about how sex, no matter how safe, can do Simply Terrible Damage to one’s heart.

Does Trojan make a condom for the cardiac muscle? I don’t think so and, if they do, I’m pretty sure they’re not handing them out in Health class. Budget freeze.

The beautiful people don’t shop at my Walmart

So, on Sunday, I go straight from my 90-minute Spin class to Walmart.

Yes, I instruct people on how to pedal a bike, indoors. Thankfully, there is a minimum amount of instruction required. My role as instructor is more like that of Fascist Dictator. I’m kind of like a Spinning Stalin. A Motivating Mussolini. I yell at them and they do what I say. They seem to like it.

So, anyway, I go straight to Walmart from Spinning class because I live in the southeast area of Massachusetts, better known as The Land that Time Forgot. Or Land of the Lost, minus the Sleestaks and the zany antics of Will Farrell. The only zany antics we have around here involve second and third cousins.

There is nothing near where I live except cranberries. Cranberries and hillbillies. Massachusetts hillbillies. Who’da thunk it? In some circles, this area of Massachusetts is considered to be the Cranberry Capital of the World. Translated, this means, there’s a lot of bogs around here. Bog is the perfect example of onomatopoeia, a word that sounds just like what it is.

Since I live far, far away from literate civilization I have to go straight to Walmart from the YMCA, otherwise I might end up in one of those long journey kind of predicaments, the kind that require the consumption of familiar human flesh.

Needless to say, as I have just spent the last 90 minutes yelling at 20 or so odd people while simultaneously pedaling a stationary bike like Elmira Gulch with Toto in the basket, I am not looking my best. I literally had sweat salt in my hair. My daughter told me about it. She’s so thoughtful that way. So honest and forthright.

Sunday afternoon at Walmart is a veritable Who’s Who of the Not Beautiful People. The Beautiful People do not shop at my Walmart. The Beautiful People do not live where I live. The Beautiful People do not know or care who currently holds the title of Cranberry Capital of the World. The Beautiful People think cranberries come from Whole Foods.

I went to a Whole Foods once. I was far away home. I was in a beautiful land far, far away from southeastern Massachusetts. There is no Whole Foods where I live. There is no grocery store in my town. What we have instead are Dunkin’ Donuts – roughly 175 of them. Everyone is too jittery to be hungry, so technically we don’t need a grocery store. And if they’re all that hungry, they can always get the breakfast sandwich. No, I was up near Boston, deep in Starbucks country.

Whole Foods was not at all like Walmart. I could never go to Whole Foods after Spin class. I’m pretty sure they won’t let you in if you have sweat salt in your hair. I think they have a dress code. And I don’t think the dress code includes pajama bottoms. Pastel pink leggings are definitely out and I’m pretty sure they’d frown on a wife beater. I don’t think you can even say wife and beater in the same sentence at Whole Foods. I think if you did, they might serve you with a restraining order. 

Everything about Whole Foods was beautiful. The produce, the deli, the bakery. I cannot even talk about the bakery. It is blasphemy to speak of the Whole Foods Bakery. One must take the pilgrimage and pay homage to the bakery as one might travel to the Holy Land or Plymouth Rock. Genuflect before the bakery. There is no other appropriate response.

Since I couldn’t afford anything at Whole Foods, I didn’t stay long. I left with a five dollar, 12-ounce bag of flax seed embedded organic tortilla chips. We don’t have flax seed where I live. We have cranberries and hillbilly cousins and fake Coach bags. No fake Coach bags at Whole Foods. And no American cars either.

I shop at Walmart because it’s cheap and they have everything I need. Yesterday was the perfect example. I needed bad-for-you food and beer for the Super Bowl. My daughter needed embroidery thread and my son needed a beating.

You can beat your children at Walmart and no one bothers you.  All those crying babies drown it out. I don’t think you can beat your children at Whole Foods. They’d knock over all that neatly stacked produce. I don’t think children can even go to Whole Foods. I think they card them at the door.

The only kids getting carded at Walmart are the ones looking to buy spray paint, or that compressed air computer cleaner stuff. Apparently you have to reach the age of majority before you can vandalize an overpass or huff computer cleaner. I don’t think you can say huff at Whole Foods either.

At Walmart, what the people lack in beauty they make up for in colorful diversity. Walmart is a veritable melting pot of cultures and socioeconomic classes. It’s sort of like traveling to a foreign country. A foreign, third world country where there are people in the streets without limbs. Except at Walmart they don’t beg you for money. They greet you at the door and give you stickers. It’s sort of like one of those new “reality tours” that are all the rage.  “See the Dharavi slums of India, tour the gang-torn streets of South Central L.A., Visit Walmart on a Sunday Afternoon…”

My only fear about shopping at Walmart on a Sunday after Spin class is that I’ll end up on that website: peopleofwalmart.com. I’d much rather be on the peopleofwholefoods website. The people at Whole Foods are so hot they should get together and publish a Whole Foods Swimsuit Calendar. They could pose by the bakery.

But, alas, I am not one of the Whole Foods Beautiful People. Maybe someday I’ll reduce my carbon footprint to the point where they’ll accept me. But, for now, I am a Sunday afternoon Walmart shopper. Some people think shopping at Walmart makes you a bad person. Like saving money and living better is somehow akin to gassing the Kurds. I don’t feel like a bad person for shopping at Walmart. And, hey, you can’t beat those prices.

I may not be a hot shopper, but, at Walmart on a Sunday afternoon, I can be a smart shopper.