Captain Kirk Had a Flip Phone

I was watching the movie Wall Street where Michael Douglas plays billionaire Gordon Geckko which sounds like a guy who really like lizards rather than a wealthy corporate raider.... anywho, GG was on the beach on cell phone which, in 1985, was probably cutting edge but old Gordy looked as if he was holding a car battery to his head. 

For the 1980s, having a cell phone, any cell phone, was probably considered high tech and I even remember thinking I was a badass for having a pager and a calling card when my friends were carrying change and using the pay phone.

I Got a New Job

I got a new job a few months back well it's actually a bit over a year now but time flies when you're having fun, not that I'm having fun, it's just an expression; so the job is not exactly new anymore and I've been forced to put down the proverbial pen and not a real pen because writers don't actually use pens to write just as no one rolls down their car window anymore yet we still make the circular 'roll down the window' gesture when we want to talk to someone inside the car.

I've picked up the gauntlet or thrown it down... whatever the good one is... or perhaps seized the day would be a better way to put it, whatever that means, and grabbed the bull by the horns, which scares the hell out of me because I’ll eventually have to let go and that bull will be soooo pissed. Anyway, I've delved into the forays of the financial world of numerical prognostication. 

It's Quite Engaging

I recently became engaged and when I say engaged I don't mean in battle or even in interesting conversation. I am behooved to be betrothed to my beloved. So me and my girlfriend are getting married or make that my fiancé and I are now engaged but she was just my girlfriend until I asked

her or she's really engaged and I just happen to be the guy who was standing next to her when it happened. And I'm not sure why I call her my fiancé and we use a french word for something that took place in Manhattan and she's not even French but she does like Italian dressing on her french fries.

It's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand

I recently purchased a Jeep, and this isn’t one of those four door Jeeps that middle managers drive with power windows and a top, and which keep all four wheels on the ground when it hits a bump. It’s one of those Wranglers with the crank down windows, the windbreaker top, and a wheelbase so short that the front and rear tires actually touch when you make a sharp turn.

The Jeep was a step up, literally, from the car I was driving before which probably means I’m regressing more than evolving. I know my crazy ex would have been against it but my current beau thinks it cute that my mid-life crisis doesn’t include a cheerleader, a toupee, and a little blue pill.

Clothes Shopping With My (ehem) Girlfriend

I don’t have a girlfriend but I do know someone who would make me sleep on the couch if she heard me say that. This past weekend, I was put through the ultimate relationship test. I didn’t get down on one knee or meet her parents or protect her from a mugger; this was something much more tenuous, taunting, and trepidatious. This past Saturday, (queue the drum roll) we went clothes shopping.

She said she wanted to spend the entire day with me (good), but she had to go clothes shopping (bad). I knew this was a test and one I could not possibly pass it would take me about twenty minutes to replace everything I own; and that includes a stop at Aunt Annie’s for a pretzel and lemonade.

I thought I’d be able to talk my way out of it and I’m not sure how she hooked me or what spell I was under but before I could say “You don’t need me. If the shoe fits, buy it,” I found myself knee deep in camisoles saying things like “that color has a slimming effect,” “you can so pull that look off,” and “that is so last year honey.”

What I Notice About a Woman

I was at Starbucks with a few friends when a woman walked by, tossed her hair, and plopped herself down sideways in the chair with her legs over one side. We spun our heads around as did every male in the Bucks. Her pants were a size too small and her shirt was so tight the buttons were hanging on for dear life; the top three must have jumped shirt.

John thought he knew this woman. “What I would do to that. Those boobs are hoisted up as if to say ‘here, try one.’ She’s insecure and wants you to notice and is somehow offended when you do. But she more pissed when you don’t look. She wants it even though she says she doesn’t.”

I doubt that was the message she was trying to send but we agreed with John. I guess that’s why men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and I can’t get a date on planet earth.

She Had Me From Hello

I recently greeted a coworker with ‘havin fun?’ The are you and the g were implied and I see this person everyday so I thought nothing of it. She stopped me and the conversation went something like this:

Katie: Did you say ‘having fun?’

Me: Yep, but without the ‘g.’

Katie: Why do you ask that?

Me: It’s how I say hi.

Katie: Then why not just say hi?

Me: I’m just trying to be different.

Katie: But why do you say it?

Me: It’s just how I greet people.

Katie: But why that? You’d be better off saying nothing.

I didn’t just walk away, I ran and did not pass go or collect $200 as I was trying to avoid breathing her air. She was cute but she wasn’t the one, if there is such a thing, or even one of the one’s I like to greet on a daily basis. I worked with Katie for another two years and found a way to consistently avoid her.

ADHD

I was recently diagnosed with ADHD or at least I think I was but the doctor took forever to explain his diagnosis and after a while, he just sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher who I think was a trombone, or a kazoo (or was Kazoo the genie from The Flinstones?), or maybe a trumpet with a piece of Tupperware over the end of it which reminded me I had leftovers in the fridge.

And I remember how CB used to sit there and wait for his teacher to explain or instruct or override what Chuck was saying or doing and even thinking in clear drivethruese and Charlie, of course, never really listened and just waited for his turn to talk, which he never really got, and I don’t even have the time for self-important people to give their ten minute explanation for something that could be completed clearly and concisely in two.

The Good Old Days Kind of Sucked

I recently met someone from the WWII generation which Bob Dole has dubbed the Greatest Generation. I have respect for my elders so I called him ‘sir’ and I expected to receive some Buddha-like words of wisdom that I could carry through life. The conversation went something like this:

Me: It’s nice to meet you sir.

Him: I’m from the Greatest Generation.

Me: Your generation won WWII.

Him: And your generation has no values, no respect, and no regard for anyone but yourselves.

Me: I agree things aren’t the same. But we’re not all bad.

Him: With your drugs and your sex and your Godlessness. You’re a worthless bunch of heathens.

I could have agreed and smiled politely, or be the much needed thorn in his side. I went for option three and put an old grumpy bastard in his place:

Me: Weren’t Hitler, Dresden, Castro, and Butch from The Little Rascals part of your generation? And in your generation, black and white people couldn't use the same bathroom.

Death by Proxy

A friend died yesterday. I’m not going to pretend that we were all that close or swoop in with some made up connection we never had. He really was a friend from over twenty years ago and, back in the day, we had some good times: a Halloween that would make The Hangover seem like a drama, the haircut of a friend that felt like a crime, and a trip to the NY Auto Show for three people in a two-seater. But we drifted apart as many people do. We maintained a mutual friend and we’d cross paths every so often; there was always that familiarity two old friends have.

At forty-two, I wasn’t really expecting to be confronted with the death of a contemporary. My uncle died a few months back so death was still with me like a bad glass of milk; he was eighty-five and it was almost expected. Bob (not his real name) was thirty-nine and diagnosed at thirty-eight with two kids and one on the way. He lived past his ‘expiration date’ as he called it and with a brand new baby, he knew he was on borrowed time. Even when you see it coming, you never really see it coming.