Lab Coats and the Tiny Green Art Smock

I’m thinkin’ I’m invisible. Yup. Invisible. I drive a big black truck but no one sees me on the road. I go out to eat with my wife and get the humbling feeling that I’m making noises like the teacher from a Snoopy cartoon when I talk. And last night one of the shedders that I share my home with (under protest) ran headlong into my leg as I stood in the kitchen.

Invisible.

I’ve reached the not so enviable point in life where young people stare vacantly or roll their eyes when I talk, middle-agers tune me out, and short-timers crash into me when I stand patiently in checkout lines. No kidding, it’s as if when oldies reach the age of AARP, lime green spandex, and fear of bathing they lose all sense of spatial awareness. The other day I had a large heavy-breathing older fella stand so close behind me in line at the post office that I could feel his hot McDonalds breath on the back of my head. And I checked my wallet a few times because whatever he had in his hand – I’m hoping mail – kept touching the back of my pants.

 

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Generation Three-Fer

I want to have a better understanding of the human mind. For the past few years I’ve been trying to figure out the cultural malaise that has gripped America, specifically young people. It’s been like watching a family member sick with the flu but instead of getting better they become more compromised…weaker.

I’ve wracked my brain in a futile effort to identify a cause. Surely it has to be the confluence of events – variables – that have created a culture of youth that has mutated, becoming zombie-like in movement, appearance, and verve. There’s simply a dearth of life-energy in this group. They speak of hopelessness and boredom, unable to get out of bed to go to work or school and face the mundane “challenges” that we eagerly embrace as a means to an end. I’ve seen young men at work standing disengaged, sitting, staring, moving at a disinterested sloth-like pace, that is until the “recess” bell rings, while their older co-workers move like the Energizer Bunny on Red Bull to pick up the slack.

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Chickpeas & Lime Zest

Women change. Evolve. “Grow.” Guys don’t. We’re like dogs. We just age. Over the years we like the same food. The same music. The same underwear. The same snacks and treats. A favorite old coat with tattered cuffs. And we have at least one pair of jeans that should have been thrown out when the first Bush left office.

I loved brownies as a kid. I still love brownies (without nuts). For some reason my evolver finds it necessary to deviate from the tried-and-true staples of man-life, mostly with food.

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Frolicking Curmudgeon

Uh oh. Does everyone know what season it is? It’s here. The much anticipated Christmas Hallmark Channel season or what I refer to as the season of TV love triangles, tears, snowball fights, and hot chocolate. And much like the artificial world of afternoon soaps, Hallmark’s snow globe reality sets an expectation for holiday frolicking to which an employed guy – without access to a personal helicopter, yacht, hotel chain, or royal lineage – might have a problem measuring up.

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Bob “Fish” Fishelson

If you’re lucky, you knew Bob. But who didn’t? Of all the people I’ve known, Bob has been the common thread, the guy that has proven the human connection theory of six degrees of separation. He was simply everyone’s friend. Bob “Fish” Fishelson got tired and left us today.

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