Life Is a Pain

My shoulder hurts. I don’t mean just a little bursitis or run of the mill post-softball soreness. My shoulder hu-u-u-urts!  And it won’t bend in some of the accustomed directions.  This is not a function of old age, at least, not entirely.  It actually might have something to do with having lifted a heavy item from a bad position while doing some storm repairs last month.

This is not the first time I’ve managed to hurt myself doing home repairs.  Once, I reached without thinking for a tool clipped to the back of my belt and rolled right off the roof, landing caboose-first on the stump of an old juniper. That one spoke to me for awhile.

I’ve smashed thumbs, barked knees and been poked in embarrassing places.  But not all my mishaps have befallen me in the course of home improvement projects. 

The cracked ribs were the result of a dog-corralling miscalculation. I turned one way, dog lunged the other way, ribs hit the street curb.

Then there was the time I was replacing the house plumbing and rigged up a seat under the house so I could build the hot water manifold in relative comfort. I was so engrossed in the shear beauty of the multiple cutoff valves and all the shiny straight lines, I utterly forgot the bare knee that was perfectly positioned to catch drops of hot flux and solder dripping out of the half-inch tee in question.  When that solder hit my skin, I did what came naturally and tried to hop out of the way, bringing my noggin up to and touching a floor joist in a rather abrupt manner.  I’m told I made several interesting noises, not all of them pleasant or even socially acceptable.

Then there was the time I topped off a session of tool sharpening by dropping a 1” cabinetmaker’s chisel on my foot, pointy end down. That one got my attention.

I’m going to call the doc tomorrow about the shoulder. I hope she doesn’t try to convince me I’m just getting old. You see, I no longer believe that the encroaching aches and pains of aging are necessarily associated with aging per se. In fact, if there is a single thread running through my various mishaps, it seems the common denominator may just be gravity.

Gravity hates me.

A Matter of Perseverance

It’s not so much a staring contest as an attention contest.  A pure battle of wills in which only one side can win.  Either I give in and go get Zoey a doggie biscuit, or I don’t and she continues boring holes in the side of my head until I do give in. If I look, I’m lost.

                She does have several advantages. She knows that if I so much as wink in her direction, she will do her prancing, spinning Cute Dog Dance, which I’ve never been able to resist. Another advantage for team Zoey is that she is single minded. She knows nothing at the moment other than her desire for a treat. There are  no distractions on her horizon. She doesn’t wonder when the women will be home, she doesn’t want to know how the book I’m reading will turn out. She surely doesn’t care if the heating system filters need changing.

                Zoey has a brain the size of a walnut but that entire walnut is focused on one thing and one thing only. I, on the other hand, have to move at some point and any slight twitch on my part will be seen by her as submission to her will. Which means, of course, I will then have to submit sooner or later when she goes into that stupid dance.

                I can channel check the TV but on Friday night, the pickings are slim indeed. I could feign sleep but that always results in actual sleep and I do not want my daughter to come home and find me snoring with the matter of cupcake retribution yet unresolved.

                Maybe I’ll just…DANG! I looked!

                See ya. (By the way, this is Sindy’s fault. Don’t ask why.)

What a Dog Wants

I’ve been quite close to several dogs in my lifetime to date.  From Rip to Heidi to Good Melvin, to Mancha to Anybody’s to Talulah to Louise to Evil Melvin to Sam to Nellie to Odin to Ynez to Zoey, I’ve been (mostly) blessed with some fine dog buddies. Even the ones that were pains in the bum occasionally had their winning ways.

                I’ve always felt I could communicate pretty well with the dogs with whom I’ve partnered. Which is not to say any of them ever really listened to what I had to say. A dog trainer told me that we were there to train me, not Sam. Sam already know how to sit, stay, stand, walk, bark or not, pee or not. And he knew how to listen attentively. So, why couldn’t we work together seamlessly? It turns out that what the team was missing fairly closely matched my own deficiencies. Sam was all set, but Michael had some problems with communications. I just needed to learn how to tell the dog what was expected. And of course, to manage my expectations.

                Turns out, it’s not always reasonable to expect a dog to be interested in doing what I want it to do. And the problem becomes larger if I fail to learn to make sounds and signals that convey meaningful intent to my dog buddy.   And if I don’t put in the time required for the dog to learn that the easiest path lies in doing what I ask him to do, forget it. What a dog wants is clear and loving direction.

                I’ve failed once again with our current dogs, Odin and Zoey.  It’s not too late. All I need do is start being consistently and firmly communicative with my canine buddies. I’ll start tomorrow.

                Or not.

My Little Kingdom

In his commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, David Foster Wallace reportedly spoke of us being “lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.”  I won’t quote extensively here from an address that you can read for yourselves.  But I do think this one line is especially worth dwelling on for a moment.

                I’ve never been able to truly put myself into another person’s brain bucket, to imagine seeing the world from her perspective.  Maybe that’s why sympathy comes so much more easily to me than empathy. Am I alone in this?

                I know what it feels like to teach a class or to drive a car on the open road or to play a drum set decently or a guitar somewhat less decently, to focus through an asthma attack, hug my wife, sing that perfect note quite accidentally so my head rings, pet the dog, read a book, hang drywall.  But I can’t know how it would feel to be YOU teaching a class or driving a car, or, or, or… And therein lies the rub.

                My kingdom has come together decently at this point in my descent toward geezerdom. I have a number of really good, longtime friends and riches that have nothing to do with bank accounts. It’s so easy to become self-satisfied as my daughters move into their adult lives to a string of yeses and Mary and I talk about the things we’d like to do together when it’s only us and the dogs around the castle.  All of this is well and good and I look forward to the proverbial next phase of life.

                But still, I hope this next phase won’t be characterized primarily by self-satisfaction.  I’m hoping I can turn my gaze outward, learn a bit about life outside my little kingdom. I hope my old friends and new friends will read and reply and carry on with me a dialog that will help me view life through their eyes or at least, in parallax. I hope you won’t leave me alone here at the center of all creation.

Too Busy to Blog

Daughter Two received REALLY good news on one of her college apps. Went out to dinner to recognize her achievement, then watched the State of the Union Address together. Altogether, quite a fine evening.

Will be more profound (or funny, or annoying...) next time.

An Errant Cupcake

                So, Daughter Two was being a bit annoying the other night, ordering us around, treating us like servants. You know, normal teenage crapola.  I’d already made dinner and done the dishes while her mother (my wife, technically the only one in the household I actually AGREED to live with) filled out her FAFSA and other forms for college admissions.  Daughter One had just returned from work and was eating a late dinner.

                One might think Daughter Two would understand that reclining on the couch contributing nothing to the common weal  other than the occasional pithy comment about whatever show was playing on the TV, was not the best way to ingratiate herself to Dear Old Dad. And raising her head every ten minutes or so, mumbling out her latest demand for couch service did nothing to elevate the charm factor.

                “If you’re going in the kitchen, would you bring me some juice?”

                 “Can you hand me the controller?”

                “Is anyone going to the store?”

                I can’t say why the request that someone fetch her a cupcake became the tipping point. I think I remember that somewhere between tripping over her discarded shoe on the way to the kitchen and being rudely accosted nose-first in the crotchal region by her moose of a dog on the way back, something in me went sidewise. I’m not sure there was even any thought process involved. I don’t recall deciding, I certainly spent no time on planning, it just sort of happened.

                The tragedy occurred when, instead of jerking her head away from my hand, she leaned abruptly forward.  As her nostril took a core sample, the rest of her face absorbed most of the chocolate cupcake, so that she resembled nothing so much as a monochromatic Leroy Neiman painting on a human canvas.  She spent the next twenty minutes alternating between Betty Crocker sneezes, rinsing out her favorite hoodie and wiping smooshed cupcake off her face, neck, hands, etc.

                Apparently, Daughter Two was not entirely pleased with my choice of cupcake delivery method. I understand she intends some sort of recompense, at a time and of a type of her choosing. 

                Bring it on, girl – I’m thinking berry pie next time. 

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Polite Discourse?

China’s president Hu Jintao visited the United States this week. Consider that 1.3 billion people – 20% of the world’s population – live in China. It is quickly emerging as our most important trading partner. So, perhaps Rush Limbaugh could refrain from mocking Hu’s accent on national radio.

Tea Partiers titled their legislation the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” Really?   Our legislators need to be this snarky when voting on life-changing legislation?

Doing the “full retard,” Mr. Stiller?

Does everything from politics to ‘comedy’ movies have to be so hateful? Is there no longer room in our national discourse for just a smidgeon of goodwill, even courtesy?

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The Hummingbird and the Moon

We had a hummingbird frozen to the outside of our house recently.  When I first noticed it, I stopped stone cold for a moment, wondering what manner of nectar a house produced. But when the little guy didn’t move at my approach, I knew something was up.  Closer inspection revealed that the bird was frozen to the mortar between two bricks, an example of the old lick-the-frozen-flagpole trick gone horribly wrong.

We all examined the necrotic nectar eater as we came and went over the next few days. We scrutinized him from every angle, from the beautiful iridescence of the plumage to the little frozen ball of hummingbird feeder juice that bonded him in his death frieze. The little guy sort of became one of our own until the cold front moved on and one day he did, too.  And we tried not to think why the cat wasn’t so hungry that night.

Driving home this evening, I looked up and right there in front of me was the most beautiful huge moon I’ve seen in a long time. As is seldom the case, I really did see the Man in the Moon, or so it seemed. No haze halo, no obscuring clouds and no intervening freeway lights. Just a perfect moon.

Sometimes it’s so nice not to think too deeply, not to try to figure things out to the last decimal point. Sometimes it’s enough just to notice.

My Descent Into Geezerdom

                I have to wonder when I crossed over the line from Regular Guy to one of Them.  I used to hold the door for women and the elderly. These days, young women occasionally hold doors for me. I catch people glancing surreptitiously at my belt line.  At one time I would have thought maybe they were checking out the package, but then a chance encounter with a mirror suggests that what they were probably looking at was the packaging. And not in a positive way. I might as well face it - my belt folds over.  Yes, there is definite tippage at the juncture between gut and groin.

                When I am power walking with my buddy along the waterfront, of late no one seems to check me out except perhaps to gauge how to go around me. Which, it becomes clear from their furtive glances and furrowed brows, requires some degree of planning.   The hair is gray, rivulets of wrinkles form deltas around my eyes. Speaking of which, my eyebrows have developed minds of their own, sending out alien-looking feelers in odd and apparently unplanned directions.  Did I mention my feet hurt? Not all the time, but more and more frequently and especially when I stand after sitting for any length of time.  Or for that matter, when I stand for any period of time.

                And if the physical manifestations of aging weren’t enough, the passage of time also seems to be moving me inexorably out of the realm of hipness. Increasingly, my daughters stare uncomprehendingly at some of my best comedic material. They profess embarrassment for reasons ranging from my sartorial choices to my taste in music.  Apparently, there is something wrong with wearing black socks with sweat shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, flamboyantly directing the music in my iPod earphones while walking on my treadmill. Who knew?

                The point is, I never did know. My apparent slide down the slippery slope to Geezerdom has nothing to do with aging. In fact, it’s not a slide at all – I’ve always been this way. I have always been, am now and hope to always be just a bit to one side of normal. It’s where I live, who I am and all that I can be. I grew up this way and it’s high time I took ownership of who I am.  So, dear reader, the real me revealed:

                I had a chemistry set as a kid and I used to save up my allowance to buy specimens in formaldehyde to dissect. I could probably still point out the major organs in a preserved perch. I babysat and mowed lawns and had two paper routes. I was a Boy Scout and an altar boy. I loved doing Broadway-style  musicals and when I put together a band with my high school friends, it was a nineteen piece Miller-style stage band. And that was in the late sixties!

                I am lost in love with my wife of almost 24 years and still close to my high school girl friend. When I pick up the guitar, I’m more likely to play a song from Gord’s Gold than the Grateful Dead. I couldn’t identify grunge music with a gun to my head. I really, really like folk music and I record the folkie reunion shows on PBS. And there’s no point to me reading People magazine because I have no earthly idea who most of those folks are or why I should care that they’re in rehab. Again.

                I am a mild person when I’m not being an unrepentant jerk and a lover of all people when I’m not shaking my fist at some stranger on the freeway. I watch Survivor but not South Park and have the DVDs of all seven seasons of The West Wing. A good Saturday morning is coffee with my wife while we watch a home improvement show on Home and Garden TV.  I’ve been a voter since the ’72 election and I’ve hardly ever seen my candidate win national office. Both my generally conservative family and my generally liberal friends consider my political stances incomprehensible.  By any reasonably informed  estimation,  I’m not cool or socially acceptable or studly or stunning or graceful. But I am me and I am thankful for the life I’m living and the folks with whom I’m living it.

                So, no more apologies. This is Michael, unrepentant and unreconstructed. I am Da Man by my own estimation and I don’t particularly care who disagrees. That will be the starting point of this blog and the guiding force behind my comments. Love me or leave me, I like me just the way I am.

                (Except maybe the weight…gotta work on the weight…)