Tag Archives: aging

January 4, 2013 · 8:19 am

On Mundainacity and Testostrone

We’re four days into 2013 and I don’t like it. Already has a bad feel to it as far as years go.

For one thing it started in a fog. Literally a fog. I’ve got some inner ear thing going, probably related to sinuses mess I’ve experienced for years. I’ve been enjoying periods of vertigo that would make a three bottle Three Buck Chuck bender proud. Wednesday- literally had to crawl to the can in a cold sweat from motion sickness. I’ve had this before, but not like this.

So guess what, I’m not driving at the moment, at least not until this passes somewhat. I’m not sure if there is a worse feeling in the world than having the bed spins, especially when you didn’t do anything to deserve them. Mrs S has suggested a trip to the doctor, but in the new realty of Health Savings Accounts I’m going to wait for April when the accounts recharge. In the meantime meclizine, dayquil and no sudden head turns seem to get me through the day.

But it’s not a great day. Being drunk all the time with out drinking isn’t as neat as sounds.

I’m also literally starving for content to write about. In the past I’ve had a nice inner voice providing me with snippy quotes and fun topics to share with the world at a 5X a week clip, the last couple weeks that voice seems to have gone a hiatus. I attribute this to a couple things, for one concentrating on standing upright does preoccupy ones thoughts, especially in the shower where I tend to get a lot of my ideas. And two, I’ve sort of descended into this weird state of mundainacity. (my word, feel free to use it, it means a state of sublime banal ambivalence.) I haven’t been mad about anything for a couple weeks now. Which means, the fuel to my creative fire is low.

That’s what happens when the kids move out. Nothing to get too excited about.

Blahs.

Friend of my suggested that I try some hormone replacement theropy. Man-hormone. The stuff that gives my mother her thick luxurious Mediterranean cookie duster that frightens the children and makes everyone she talks to uncomfortable. Hard to be polite and not stare. Honestly I’m not all that open to the idea, I sort of feel like testosterone isn’t the latest medical fad. And of the two friends I know who are on it, one has become a nuvo Hercules like stud at 52, the other has come down with testicular cancer at 61. About 40 years after it would be expected. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection.

Nut Cancer. I was pretty sure I’d reached that stage in life where I would longer have to worry about the “boys” anymore. No one else does these days. (thank you I’m here all week). Certainly not the doctor, in old age his focus seems to have moved farther back and up a bit, up as far as his Louisville slugger finger can reach, at least if my latest visits are any indication. Hell of a way to make a living if you ask me.  

It could just be a good old fashioned case of seasonal gloomies. That’s a real word BTW. When I was strapping young man enjoying college, and of course being too young to realize just how much of an enjoyment it was a the time, youth is wasted on the youth as they say. I had a favorite Prof, Dr. Richard Ek. He taught communications law. Great guy, Dr. Ek used to wear the most hideously colored sweaters you could imagine to class. Bright gawdy yellows and greens. He wore neon before it was popular. Which for you younger black wearing misguided gothic youths, neon was the rage for about 11 months around 1993. Check out a band called “Loverboy” on Youtube for an example, or look google leggings or legwarmers. Fashion archive.

Anyway Dr. Ek would come into class glowing like a bad fishing lure and proclaim that he was “chasing away the gloomies”. I never forgot about that, always made me chuckle. Unfortunately his gloomies got the best of him and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2009. Talk about a sucky end to innocent light hearted search. I only found out about it because I was reminiscing and wondering if he was still alive. I haven’t resorted to pursing the obits yet, but I am finding myself reminiscing more that I should be.

BTW, for us older guys who are uh, you know a little to the right of hypochondriac and a little to left of paranoid, when you do print the obituaries of anyone under 108, a brief cause of death would be appreciated. I like to be able to clear the causes of folks mortality from my own growing list of possibilities. I prefer to see guys my age who die from car accidents or self-immolation rather than massive heart attack after straining on the stool. I’m just being honest here. I like to rule things out.

Speaking of Dr. Ek, I didn’t expect to find him living when I looked him up. When he died he was 82. I seriously thought he was 82 in 1984 when I was sitting in his class. That means he was 57 then. Not much older than I’m going to be in a year or so. Assuming I don’t OD on Dramamine or fall off the can as my world makes a sharp left turn as I reach for the TP, only to hit my head on something hard.

Shit, one more thing to worry about. I think I might look into a home helmet. Something stylish and sexy, might as well get fitted for braces and headgear while I’m at it. When I was kid I never complied to the Orthodontists instructions, no matter how “cool” Dr. Bollinger said the latest neck straps for headgear were, he was wrong. Incredibly wrong. Wearing headgear to school did not improve my chances to mate, to the contrary. Shocking I know. But who knows at my age wearing a helmet, braces and headgear at 50, lets just say vertigo and testosterone therapy would be a lot lower on my list of shit to worry about. And, would probably give me more stuff to write about.  

Look at that, something to look forward too. The year is looking up already. Nothing else, I got 1000 words.

 

 

 

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November 26, 2012 · 10:04 pm

I Want, I Want, I Want to be Inspired.

What influenced you to become what you are today? Was it someone you wanted to emulate as kid? Maybe a family member who you looked up too. Was it a celebrity, maybe an astronaut or a famous doctor, politician? For Mrs S she found inspiration a series of  books; Cherry Ames Student Nurse. The books featured a student nurse who solved crimes in her spare time. Proving, and this was rare in books from the 40′s and 50′s, that empowered women could do anything they wanted.

This came to mind recently because I found a bunch of these books at a used book store in Saint Paul, and the find triggered a thought, what inspired me?

These books inspired more than a few girls, Mrs S included, to become nurses, and during the early years of the series, helped the war effort by recruiting nurses for the cause. I didn’t have such great direction in my childhood. While my bride to be was reading about Cherry, Super Sluth Nurse I was reading the Hardy Boys series. I didn’t realize it at the time but the Hardy Boys were a couple of xenophobic borderline racists and, we now know, they were closeted homosexuals.

Gasp. Not that it matters but it is kinda funny looking back. If you think about it, they didn’t really hang with their girl friends, they really like to hang out with Chet and Biff. Chet went to art camp in my favorite book, The Haunted Fort and Biff, as the Joe Hardy was fond of saying, had “muscles of steel”. Who knew. I think I probably had 20 or so of those books laying around the house when I was growing up, not sure where they landed. Mrs S has a few Cherry Ames books down in the basement, she got them from one of her Aunts, the same person who first exposed her to the candy striper with logical head for solving crimes adult men couldn’t. And while Mrs S has retired from the nursing profession lo these 18 years, she has maintained her interest in crime fighting, which she does today vicariously through her “stories”, her love of mysteries in film, TV and in print.

To the point that she’s not all that fun to watch a mystery with because she has it figured out way before I do.

I did have one role model, kinda, growing up. I thought my Dads brother was about the coolest guy around. Wonderful family man, cool house deep in the heart of Texas, great career as an anesthesiologist, well loved in the community, unfortunately I lacked a certain gumption when it came to the world of academia, especially when it came to math and science. Sort of an idiot savant without much savant. But I might have got the family part right, my kids seem to be doing ok.. then again that’s more their mother than I, I think they’ll remember me as a raging lunatic who liked to yell at them for thing not flushing the toilet.

I’m still looking for my inspiration, and at this point time is running out. At 50 I’d'a thunk I’d'a figga’d it out, apparently not. I have two books I’ve recently read that are inspiring on some level. Saul Bellows Henderson the Rain King. What’s better than an middle aged man, in his midlife crisis, his inner voice saying I want, I want, I want… who goes to Africa and clusterfucks his way through one village to another, eventually becoming an unwilling King of a tribe and winds up going home to get away from the responsibility, still wondering about fulfillment.

The other book I’ve found interesting of late, oddly enough, the Book of Samuel, I and II. Yeah I cracked a Bible, a readable translation of the Hebrew Bible from the Jewish Publication Society to read about David. Why? Because I recently overheard a discussion about David and his flaws, his strengths and his own personal midlife crisis, so I thought I’d check it out.

Very interesting. He kills a Philistine, and later lives among them to hide out from the king he will eventually ursurp. Sends a husband to his death in war so he can marry his wife, has one kid kill another and finally winds up with absolute power over his kingdom and yet, no control over his family or the course of events in his own life and is a miserable old dude.

David had the same nagging question if you ask me, I want, I want, I want and like Henderson, and a certain fat ass 50 year old, couldn’t answer it either. I guess angst is all part of the process of growing up and out.

 

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June 15, 2012 · 2:05 pm

The Lock Keeper and the Sailor

From Stan Rogers, the great Canadian singer-songwriter:

You say, “Well-met again, Lock-keeper!
We’re laden even deeper that the time before,
Oriental oils and tea brought down from Singapore.”
As we wait for my lock to cycle
I say, “My wife has given me a son.”
“A son!” you cry, “Is that all that you’ve done?”

She wears bougainvillea blossoms.
You pluck ‘em from her hair and toss ‘em in the tide,
Sweep her in your arms and carry her inside.
Her sighs catch on your shoulder;
Her moonlit eyes grow bold and wiser through her tears
And I say, “How could you stand to leave her for a year?”

“Then come with me,” you say, “to where the Southern Cross
Rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me!” you cry,
“Each day you tend this lock, you’re one day older,
While your blood grows colder.”

But that anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your life for one hour of home.

Sure I’m stuck here on the Seaway
While you compensate for leeway through the Trades;
And you shoot the stars to see the miles you’ve made.
And you laugh at hearts you’ve riven,
But which of these has given us more love or life:
You, your tropic maids, or me, my wife.

“Then come with me,” you say, “to where the Southern Cross
Rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Ah come with me!” you cry,
“Each day you tend this lock, you’re one day older,
While your blood grows colder.”

But that anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your life for one hour of home.
Ah, your anchor chain’s a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn’t trade your whole life for one hour of home.

It seems regardless of if I want to or not, that I’m entering into a period of forced reflection as the anniversaries of events in my life begin to accumulate impressive numbers behind them. This week in particular one came up and passed, my 25th anniversary at the business of lock keeping.

Hang up the phone mother, Metaphor I haven’t made a career change.

I would defy anyone to pass a quarter century milestone without taking at least a moment to reflect and consider.

-       Did I make the right choices in life?

-       Am I happy where I am?

-       What could have been?

I know, for the regular readers this is getting a bit tiresome, the verbose fat man is pontificating on life again and frankly, it’s a bit droll. I hear ya, I’d rather read about toilet humor and dumb things my kids say, but this is important to me. Which, in this space, is uh, as they say, all that matters..

Now that I’ve weeded out the shallow readers, indulge me a bit.

The circumstances my introspective emotional rent here has to do this the above song, a Stan Rogers beauty which was also recorded by my hero Gordon Bok on one of his many folk albums with nautical bents. The song just happened to come up on my iPod this week. Coincidence? Song hasn’t come up in 3 or 4 years near as I can remember, but now on my 25th anniversary, there it was.

I shared it with a few friends and they found expressed some concern about my mental health. Not to worry. I don’t see this is a depressing ode to lost opportunity.

I see it as a legitimate conversation between two approaches to life. A conversation that especially resonates for me because I have been a lock keeper for an awfully long time.

My Father in Law, he was clearly a sailor. Risk, travel for weeks at a time… and it’s poignant to point out that the only an only thing that he ever mentioned to me, when it came to telling me  about things he was disappointed about, was that I was safe. I was always on the seaway, and that I will never see the Southern Cross, a constellation he pursued with great vigor.

Safe.

I have three kids who are in various stages of moving on in their lives to the point where the choices they make will set them on the path of being a a sailor or lock keeper. My inclination and what I’ve found myself telling them is; “don’t be like me, get out there and change the world.”

Not without a bit of mist in my eyes to be honest.

But being Jewish and thus predisposed to turn text and ideas in my head around and around, a metaphor for the scrolls we read from, same scrolls, year after year, same words with unlimited lessons,  I realize that my advice of not being like me may not have been correct.

My Father in Law, the last few years or so especially, had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids, one on one. He got to see his oldest Grandson become a scientist in a fast moving and exiting field. He saw his second grandson embrace an in interest in biotech research and, once the shock of actually going to school in Alabama wore off, was extremely proud of the man he was becoming. And he enjoyed his granddaughter, especially her artistic gifts, his office had pieces of work carefully framed and on display. And in those years he made a point of pulling me aside from time to time and telling me “you really have a great family, you’ve done a terrific job”. Which makes me a little misty now thinking about it to be honest.

But, like every one I can’t help but wonder: The grass is always greener.. A truism, which along with no good deed unpunished I have yet to see proven wrong.. but that’s a different blog.

Thinking about that stupid song-

And I wouldn’t trade your whole life for one hour of home.

I’ve had about a half dozen opportunities over the years to make a career change, go into consulting, go into pre-sales, work in the field.. all of which would get me off the seaway and onto the deck of a fast moving ship flying through the open water.

These jobs would have let me take advantage of my intellect and keep me at what I love to do best, THINK.. but all of them involved travel, more travel that I was interested in doing.

And I like what I do, the only advantage consulting would have provided might have been more money and a bigger title and maybe… working for myself. Which exactly how I always envisioned myself shooting the stars and navigating the trades. But again, self employment; not so safe.

So, I will not see the Southern Cross.

And to be honest I couldn’t stand to leave my wife for year, a day or two here and there we can talk, but to not have her there day after day, supporting and nurturing with a mere presence.. would be a dark existence.

I’d like to complain more, it’s fun and makes good bar talk, but really I’ve had the best of both worlds standing on seaway cycling ships through locks.  And when I ask myself; what has given me the my love of life, I have to say my wife.

Which is yet another G-damned anniversary on the way where I’m going to have to whip out that stupid emotional snot rag and do this all over again…

Stupid G-d damn songs.

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April 21, 2012 · 6:17 am

Midlife Crises-Revisited

As I was sitting on the bus yesterday, I saw an article that the Minneapolis Police Department is auctioning off all of their motorcycles. They’re disbanding the motorcycle unit. Which is only about 6 bikes but you know. Now that I think about it after 18 years of living here in the Land of the Loon, it hit me that I really don’t see motorcycle cops, I guess someone decided that since the season here is about 4 months at best maybe it was better that the constabulary conduct their business from the safety and warmth of late model American automobiles.

As I read the article two things struck me, 1) Harley to 2) Loaded. So they’re auctioning them all off. These are some nice bikes. And they’re “cop” bikes.

This started the following train of thought:

- I’m nearly 50 years old.
- The kid are just about gone. True I have a 14 year old but she spends all her time in her room and I never see her anyway so, she’s kinda gone.
- I could live on the open road, grow a beard, care not about anything and get by on like $1100 a year. I have family members that make it on that.
- I’ve never really done anything in the last 28 years where I’ve answered the mental question “What would my wife say” with the rebellious answer “Fuck it”.

BTW just thinking that way kinda scared me because to be honest, because A0 she has proven to be able to read my mind more times that I can count and B)  I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything where at some point I’ve said to myself “what would my wife say?” Yes I am owned.

How long did I expect to be married anyway? My second wife, who I haven’t met yet, is probably just graduating from college somewhere and if I don’t get out there and look for her I may never find her.

Wow

Talk about walking right to the edge of the cliff. Where did all this come from?

Now, for the first time, I “get” the midlife crises old fat guys experience. They act on their impulses.

Relax, I’m not going to act on my impulses, had I don’t that we’d be panning gold in British Columbia about now. I’m not leaving my 1st and current wife, but I gotta tell ya the thought of one them Harley’s sure sounds cool. I would absolutely ROCKET up the cool ladder, one last explosion of testosterone laced old-guy super cool, devil may care, rebellious coolness. I get a little weepy just thinking about it.

IMG_0695And like a Super Nova of dudedeness it would all fade away and just like I’m sure I’ll be wearing crocs and black socks and umbrella hats and Mrs S will have to execute the standing order I have in our marriage contract that when I start wearing shit like that, she is to put a bullet in the back of my head, or smother me with my pillow. My younger lucid self would not me living like that.

Harley. Cop Harley. Imagine pulling up to a drawbridge opening and saying to no one in particular, “It’s got cop suspension, cop tires, cop shocks..”

Can’t stop a fella from dreaming.

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May 18, 2010 · 5:00 pm

State Fair Music and Muszak

The entertainment lineup for the State Fair is being finalized now, among the acts we’ll be enjoying this summer; KISS, really I thought last winter they did their “this time we mean it” retirement tour. I guess when you get $70.00 a ticket from thousands of old fat guys the economics of retirement look different.

Rush, I’m pretty sure the same crowd who would pay for KISS would pay $70.00 for Rush. Count me in on that group, I’m going.  Now, I’m going to rationalize that Rush is more cerebral than Kiss, because they don’t wear makeup and their lyrics are evoke the spirit of Ayn Rand instead of teen angst, then again if you were to pass me a set of KISS tickets uh.. I’d go. Like a NASCAR race I’d be interested in seeing if this  is the night that Gene Simmons bursts in flames before our eyes.

BTW, Gene.. fluent in Hebrew.. who knew?

One sign that I’m nearing the end.. Rush, one of the bands who is responsible for soundtrack to my youth, the others being the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, have now joined the “an evening with”.group of acts.

An Evening With Rush…  

How far have we come? No wonder my kids laugh at me. “an evening” sort of show would be acts like George Benson or Yoyo Ma. Just goes to show how mainstream hard rock has become. Come to think of it I have very distinct memories of having lunch in 1976 at Lincoln Sr. Elementary School in Stockton CA. I would have been in the 8h Grade I think. Gary Ulrich, Mark Fagen and John someone were harassing me (something that would they would continue to do for the next 5 years BTW, before mostly winding up in prison) about music and making fun of me because I didn’t know about this great, cool, demonic, scary band called Kiss. I, was a nerd. Went out that day and used my lawn mowing money to get a copy of Destroyer. And now.. I just saw Lamb of God a few months ago with the kid, THAT was distrubing, Ozzy? KISS”  What ever were we afraid of back then?

The other act old guy act, and this is a total “evening with” sort of deal…. Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen. Ooo man, that’s really cleaning out the aging rocker home there. How those stars of “where are they now” got together I don’t know.

Michael McDonald was responsible for destroying one of the greatest biker bands of all time, the Doobies and because that I wish him nothing but ill. Boz Scaggs who I seriously thought was dead and Donald Fagen.. Steely Dan is one of the bands that I’m supposed to like as a music snob, but somehow I just can’t get past the snoozing melodies and crappy singing.

This show, I’m sure will be heavily populated by guys my age and older with gray pony tales and loafers, washing down their Lipitor and Cialis with white wine and bottled water. The days hosting the girlfriend, now wife, on ones shoulders at a concert so she can throw her bra up on stage are probably over now. At $100.00 a ticket you don’t want throw your back out or have your vision impaired by your topless old lady who at 25 was a lovely 36C but at 55 is a 38L (long) and now covers your eyes and ears. Just say’n.

47, it’s not the new 30 in exactly every way I’m afraid.

Actually I would expect that a show of aging has beens would be more of a catch for the failed Burnsville Performing Arts Center, the mulit-million dollar concert hall in neighboring Burnsville that sits empty night after night, week after week… year .. Glad I’m not paying for that one.

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