This is 40. (And It’s Not So Bad.)

It’s been a while since I wrote anything on this blog. It certainly isn’t for a lack of things to complain about. On any given day, a casual glance at the front page of a newspaper usually cranks up my brain and begins a ranting, inner monologue that would make Andy Rooney cringe.

I guess I’ve just been busy.

I had planned on returning to this space a few weeks ago, right around my 40th birthday. I figured this milestone occasion would certainly inspire some kind of profound observation about the rapidly passing years or bring me to an enlightened perspective that can only be achieved after four decades of life. As it turns out, I was wrong. Turning 40 doesn’t feel any different than turning 39 or 38 or 37. Sure, people like to make a big deal about it. There are novelty t-shirts and coffee mugs and greeting cards that celebrate and/or mock the 40th birthday, and some people jokingly call you “old man” for a few days, but none of these things really makes it feel important. It feels like just another birthday.

Sure, I’m getting older. But I’ve got a long ways to go to catch this guy.

I couldn’t really write about 40 somehow representing the end to my physical competency. I can still play soccer and basketball and run and hike without a steady diet of cortisone shots. In fact, the weekend after my 40th I ran a half marathon and set a personal record finishing, for the first time, in less than two hours. I wouldn’t say I’m in the best shape of my life, but I feel great and have fewer health problems than the average American my age. (Though to be fair, that’s not a high bar. Studies seem to indicate that the average 40-year-old American is a tub of goo.)

I couldn’t write about having some epiphany regarding my mortality because I’ve been overthinking my own death for years. I don’t need a big, round number attached to my age to make my mind spiral into the sad, lonely abyss that accompanies the thought that I will one day cease to exist. That’s a well-worn road I’ve been going down since I started watching Six Feet Under.

I couldn’t write about any philosophically astute conversations I’ve had with close friends who are also turning 40 because I haven’t spent time with those people yet. That’ll happen this weekend when I meet up with some old college buddies in Austin. We’re getting together less because we’re all turning 40 and more because turning 40 makes it more acceptable for us to shun our children and significant others in order to drink heavily for four days. But the truth of the matter is that this digestion-altering trip probably won’t involve a lot of profound discussions about the nature of aging. I think it’s mostly going to involve BBQ, booze, and dick jokes.

I guess things are changing. But it seems to be happening at such a slow rate I’m not noticing it. I’m sure all the stereotypical signs of aging will catch up with me at some point. Eventually my body will begin to betray me, I will probably reexamine my place in the metaphysical universe, and I’ll get together with my best friends and have humorously melancholy conversations about how many times we’ll all get together before one of us is worm food. It’s just not happening all at once. And it’s certainly not happening because I turned 40.

This is 40. And quite honestly, it doesn’t feel that bad. BRING ON 50!

(I’m just kidding. Turning 50 is going to be the worst day in the history of bad days. I mean, it’s really gonna suck. Now that’s a birthday that will inspire a relatively decent blog post.)

Tired of Dreaming

I’m not getting any younger. My recent birthday served as an unfortunate reminder of this sad fact. And as a result of my never-ending march toward death, I’ve found that I’m shedding some of the things I no longer feel I have time for. Examples include, but are not limited to, Christmas shopping, giving unsolicited advice, network television, small talk, baseless optimism, and sugar cereals.

One of the most recent things I’ve decided I can do without are dreams. I’m not talking about those monumental aspirations that people hold onto to convince themselves that life is going to get significantly easier and/or more exciting. I discarded those a long time ago. No, I’m literally referring to the surreal narratives that occupy my brain when I sleep at night.

When we sleep, are we sure our subconscious isn’t just f*#king with us?

Experts tell us dreams are necessary and good for you; healthy exercises that help us process our waking lives and restore our mental well-being. This all sounds great on paper, but as I’ve thought about it recently, I’m having a hard time seeing the point. More often than not, when I wake up, I don’t feel mentally rejuvenated by my dreams, but completely confused as I try to contemplate the storylines that have tainted the previous night’s slumber.

The imagery and emotion that accompany my dreams usually fade away quickly enough, but only after I’ve seemingly wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what the hell my brain was communicating to me while I was at rest.

Why was I playing with the Los Angeles Lakers in an arena that looked more like a cathedral than a sporting venue? Is it because I’m a Laker fan and a lapsed Catholic? And why were we using a tennis ball instead of a basketball?

When I was a younger man, I loved attempting to deconstruct my dreams. I enjoyed the vicarious experiences dreaming brought me as well as recapturing the feeling of some magical moment that had occurred in my past. Now it all just makes me exhausted. I’ve got more than enough on my plate without having to contemplate the David Lynch movie that played in my subconscious the night before.

Why was I working at my old college job in a pizza restaurant? Why does the restaurant always look different than it does in real life? And why do I have this dream regularly? Do I secretly want to spend eight hours a day standing in front of an eight hundred degree oven covered in flour?

 

My dreams are weird. I blame David Lynch.

Even when the symbolism of a dream is obvious, it doesn’t seem to relax me or make me feel in any way mentally refreshed. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The more blatantly transparent the dream’s message, the more anxious and upsetting it is and the less I want to be bothered with it when I awake.   

Why was my son walking up ahead of me on that country road? I called for him to slow down, but he kept walking. As he got farther and farther away I worried more and more about his well-being. How could he stay safe if he got too far away from me? I badly wanted him to wait for me or slow down a bit or even just turn and look back, so that I’d know he was okay. But he just kept walking.

I’m not old yet, but I’m getting there. And I’ve been told that as I get older I’m going to need some piece of mind. I can’t have that if I have to spend every night subconsciously having conversations with people who look like someone else I know rather than the person they’re supposed to be… while I’m naked… on the streets of New York City… with Bob Costas… right before the world ends.

Hopefully some enterprising American scientist will create a drug that’ll allow us to shut off our nocturnal narratives. It might ultimately be unhealthy and bad for us, but that’s never stopped a product from getting to market before.

One can only dream.

Half Marathon Man

This past weekend something truly amazing took place. Something most people said could never be done. It was a feat so incredible it required months of intense physical and mental preparation. This achievement was so beyond the limits of human comprehension that its importance will be debated and deconstructed for years to come.

On Sunday, October 14^th, 2012… I ran a half marathon.

Okay, Sunday also marked the day that Austrian daredevil guy jumped to earth from the edge of space, falling 128,010 feet and breaking the world record (and the sound barrier) in the process. But while Felix Baumgartner’s stunt was certainly noteworthy, his accomplishment simply cannot compare to the cramp-defying tour de force that was my sorry ass running 13.1 miles… in two hours and twenty-four minutes… in the wind and drizzle… on a very hilly course.

Gutsy jump. But as great as my half marathon?

Fine. I admit it. It really wasn’t that big a deal. But you have to understand, I never thought I’d run a half marathon. Ever. Not because I believed myself to be physically incapable of running that far, I just didn’t see the point. Jog a few miles every week to burn calories and maintain the illusion I’m in decent shape? Sure. Run miles and miles and miles over the course of a few months for the privilege of enduring two plus hours of exhausting physical pain and soul-crushing self-doubt? No, thank you.

But then I started dating this super awesome woman who happened to be a runner. And then I started running with her. And then she started telling me about her half marathons. And then I felt like a pansy for not being able to run that far. And then I started to realize I was a halfway decent runner who could probably do it. And then I recognized that at 38 years of age, pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and attempting something I’d previously thought impossible (and a bit ridiculous) had a really alluring quality to it. And then I learned I’d get a shiny medal for completing the race. And then I was in.

As the race got underway, I felt great confidence. That lasted about two miles. From there it was more about mental strength. During the race, my legs burned like Lindsey Lohan’s eyes after an all-night bender. But I pushed on. As I shuffled along the course, I questioned my decision. What the hell was I doing out in the cold running a race against no one in particular? What was I trying to prove? Why couldn’t I have met a woman who had an intense passion for billiards?

The author blazing across the finish line… to the indifference of those in attendance.

When I finished the half marathon, my legs hurt like hell and felt as weak as a campaign promise. Yet I felt great despite the pain. I’d completed the course six minutes quicker than my goal (did I mention it was windy, drizzly and hilly?), I had my shiny medal, and I knew my next meal would taste much better than energy gel.

Did I drop to the earth from the edge of the atmosphere? No. But I did something I never thought I’d do. And that’s something.

So suck it, Felix Baumgartner! Sunday was my day.

Cars + Beaches = Stoopid

If there’s one thing I hate it’s people. Collectively, we’re pretty stupid. I’ve been saying this for years and have millions of pages of recorded history to back me up. People have an uncanny knack for taking perfectly beautiful things and ruining them. We try to make things better, and instead, make them much worse. (See: New Coke, Star Wars prequels, Kenny Rogers’ face, et al.)

Recently, I discovered another magnificent thing that’s been needlessly destroyed by mankind’s stupidity: beaches. After living in Washington State for years, I finally made my way to its glorious coast. You can imagine my alarm and dismay when I finally reached the seaside and discovered automobiles driving around as if it were a city street. Apparently this ridiculousness is legal on many beaches in the Evergreen State. Families are allowed to simply drive up to the water, park the minivan, open the doors, and vomit their picnics and corresponding accoutrements onto the sand.

The most scenic parking lot in the state!

There’s no shortage of reasons for me to hate this newly discovered human failure. For one, cars are always leaking some fluid or another, which means plenty of chemicals making their way into our already polluted oceans. Also, I always thought beaches were a great place for kids to run around and play. But here in WA I’ll have to teach my son to look both ways before he crosses the dune. And maybe I’m old fashioned, but I prefer the sounds of crashing waves over the buzz of than automobile engines.

But above all else I take umbrage with cars on our shores because it represents the epitome of American laziness.

Lazy Man: Hey honey, it’s a beautiful sunny day. Wanna go to the beach?
Lazy Woman: I’d love to. But all that walking outdoors might burn calories and force fresh air into my dormant lungs.
Lazy Man: No problem! We live in Washington. We can drive up and down the beach and witness its scenic splendor from the front seat of our SUV.
Lazy Woman: Good point. Let’s go!

Or…

Lazy Woman: Let’s take the kids to the beach.
Lazy Man: I’d love to. But we’d have to drag all of our stuff a few hundred yards from the parking lot to the waterfront. Who wants to do that?
Lazy Woman: No problem! We live in Washington. We can just drive right up to the shore and roll ourselves onto the sand. We’ll hardly have to move a muscle.
Lazy Man: Good point. Let’s go!

To make matters worse, some of the folks choosing to motor around the beach don’t even know how to do it properly. In my relatively limited time near the ocean, I saw three cars get stuck. After driving ill-equipped vehicles into the sand, they spun their tires and tried in vain to push themselves free. In each case, the owners eventually found larger, beach-appropriate vehicles to tow them out. I imagine locals with large trucks can make a pretty good living on our coast during the summer months.

FYI – Cars don’t get stuck if you leave them in the parking lot.

To be honest, I’m less upset that stupid people are choosing to drive on the beach (after all they’re stupid, I would expect such behavior from them) and more ticked off that state and local authorities allow this silliness to occur. For ten years I lived in Southern California, a region where cars are quite literally everywhere. You want to know where they aren’t? At the beach. You know why? Because it’s the freakin’ beach!

I understand we have a large, diverse country and that different regions have different laws and different ways of doing things. But our nation’s coastal beaches are breathtakingly beautiful and shouldn’t be driven on or used for our parking convenience. We should cherish them and enjoy their magnificence until they’re inevitably developed into luxury resorts and multimillion dollar homes. Is that really too much to ask?

Hot, Hot, Hot!

During the winter months it gets colder and, in some parts of the country, it snows. And when the yearly ‘snowpocalypse’ occurs on the east coast Right Wing politicians and talk show hosts line up to mock those silly Liberals and scientists who believe that global warming exists.

“If the earth is getting so hot,” the pinheads giddily argue,”then why is it so cold outside?”

Of course, any reasonable human being knows that believing human activity is making the planet hotter does not mean that it’s warmer every day of the year in every corner of the globe. But if we take these Conservatives at their word, that a single snowstorm disproves years of scientific research, then why aren’t they as equally reactionary when America is sweating its collective ass off?

Here comes the sun. And it’s freakin’ hot!

According to the NOAA, the first six months of 2012 have been the hottest on record in the United States, and the last 12 months have been the hottest since 1895, the year we decided it would be a good idea to keep track of such data. And based on these record breaking temperatures, we should surely conclude that, not only is the world getting warmer, it’s doing so at a pace that will eventually lead us into a global climate disaster we’d only previously imagined seeing in a bad Michael Bay movie starring Nicholas Cage.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what the politicians think about climate change. The idiots in Congress get less done than that deadbeat cousin of yours, so why should we believe they’ll ever come up with a comprehensive solution to fixing a global catastrophe?

The biggest winner in our slow, inevitable plunge into a sweltering Armageddon will surely be David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter), whose 1987 hit Hot, Hot, Hot is sure be played ad nauseum over the next 50 years. Every time these yearly heat waves ravage segments of the country, news producers on both radio and TV are sure to go to this old standby over and over and over again.

Is zat you, royalty check?

The only folks that will be happier than Mr. Johansen are the family of Alphonsus Celestine Edmund Cassell (aka Arrow), the deceased calypso performer who penned the soon-to-be ubiquitous anthem of our doom. While the rest of us suffer through record temperatures and horrific discomfort, Johansen and Arrow’s descendants will be pleasantly basking in the crisp coolness provided by the best air conditioners royalty checks can buy.

So this January when the climate change denying ass clowns yuck it up over an extra foot of snow falling along the eastern seaboard, simply tune your brain’s radio to Buster Poindexter’s cheery song, festively shake your body, and remember that while the world may be heating up, at least you can take solace in knowing that the idiots were wrong. But then again, they usually are.

Overpronation: The Beginning of the End

For years people have told me I have flat feet. And by people, I mean my mother and my ex-wife. But it was never much of a problem. The shape of my fleshy soles meant absolutely nothing to me. If this deformity would’ve enabled me to make some extra scratch as a carnival freak on the weekends, that would’ve been something. But my flat feet had no effect on my life whatsoever.

Until now.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve found it difficult to find a pair of sneakers that felt really comfortable. This was not a problem in the past, but suddenly every time I tried on new shoes that place on my feet where arches should be felt awkward and pained because some footwear engineer decided to put a bump there. I believe these bumps are commonly referred to as “arch supports.”

This diagram allegedly illustrates my problem. (Don’t ask me how.)

Unable to procure decent footwear for the upcoming summer, I finally approached an expert (the guy at the local shoe store) about my issue. Within a few steps he observed the way my feet rolled inward when I walked. Apparently, that’s not ideal. It’s called “overpronation.” I needed shoes that better supported my feet or suffer the potential consequences — foot discomfort, muscle strain, back pain, public shame, etc.

I didn’t purchase new sneakers from the man, but I did buy a pair of the most expensive over-the-counter shoe inserts on the market. As I awkwardly adjusted to these insoles and a slightly different feel to the way I walked, I wondered where everything had gone so very wrong. As far as I know, my feet have been flat since the day I triumphantly emerged from my mother’s womb. So why are they such an issue now?

Oh, right. I’m getting old.

In all likelihood, my advanced age has contributed to my problem. My feet have probably gotten flatter over the course of my 38 years on this planet and they’re probably just going to get worse. That’s when it hit me. This is just the beginning. My body is slowly but surely breaking down. Within a few years my feet will be the least of my worries. At least this problem is easily rectified with special (i.e. expensive) insoles and more discerning (i.e. expensive) shoe shopping.

My sad, inevitable future.

Before I know it, I won’t be able to participate in a sport without following it up with two days of physical therapy. Then I’ll become perpetually tired, which will lead to an average nightly bedtime of 8:42pm. Next will be the hearing loss, which ironically won’t prevent me from complaining about the volume of the music the “kids” are blaring. After that, it’s only a matter of time before I’m wearing loose-fitting track suits, sporting blue blocker sunglasses, and cruising around on a Rascal.

Finally, after spending my last years on earth complaining about the body parts that don’t work the way they used to, and the aches and pains that bug the bejesus out of me, I will die. And that will be that.

When I go, I have but one request. Please bury me in my bare feet, so that my loved ones can glance at the flat, arch-less soles that signaled the beginning of to my eventual demise. It’s the least you can do for a dying man whose best days are clearly behind him.