Archive for the ‘Living’ Category
Predicting my resolutions for 2008
January 3rd, 2008 | 
Author: Happy New Year! It’s that magical time of year when the witty columnist dives deep into his or her own personal pool of boiling creativity and emerges, dripping, with one of exactly two of the only possible column topics available: resolutions for the new year, or predictions for the new year. It’s enough to make you long for February to come, just to get past them all.
I, however, am far more imaginative than that, and so I’m going with the third topic: predicting what will happen with my resolutions. Ready? Let’s go!
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What to give when it is too late to shop, or care
So Christmas is coming fast. And you haven’t shopped. And your loved ones will recognize, from painful experience, anything from the somewhat limited gift selections available at your corner gas station. What to do, what to do?
You can try pulling off the old “Christmas has become too commercialized so I’m donating to charity in my friends’ names at the very last minute instead” routine, but it doesn’t work for everyone, especially when the charity listed is mostly famous for its happy hour and all-you-can-eat wings.
Instead, try performing some useful, thoughtful kindnesses for your friends and family that they’ve put off, never knew about, or would never consider. Show that you're really thinking about your friends' well-being by making their lives easier and less stressful in some small way. Some examples:
Do their laundry. Take away your friends' tired feeling of dread of looming household chores by sneaking over to their house to wash, dry, and fold all of their clothes. Take them out to a laundry service if you need to. Wouldn’t that be great to come home to? Especially if your friends have never had anything dry-cleaned before, and you just know that some of those delicate items you found stashed in secret places in their closets will need careful attention. Fold their clothes, add a touch of lilac, and get them back by Christmas morning for a delightful and unexpected surprise.
My car is dead, long live my car
I’ve always been amused at the notion of trading in your car. People actually do that, I’m told, cleaning and painting and fixing up their existing vehicle to get a little money toward the new car they’re eyeing, even though the dealer most likely gauged the worth of their wreck as soon as they pulled into the lot and mentally adjusted his invoices to match before ever strapping on his smile.
Trading in a car, for me, would be an exercise in futility, and I hate exercise. I shed them instead, casting them aside only after I’ve wrung every last ounce of usefulness out of them. Something like a hermit crab whose previous home started smoking and stalling at stoplights.
I’ve rarely stuck with a specific type of vehicle; when you buy based on an immediate need and whatever’s in your pocket by looking over the ads while sitting in your half-ton, still-pinging paperweight, the choice of make, model, or color rarely enters into your figuring. A wheel on at least three corners and some way to make it go and stop more or less on demand would be the high bar, with anything else an optional extra.
On the road with half of Best Buy
I've always prided myself on being a minimalist traveler. Going away for a month? Give me a pair of pants and two shirts — three, if formal wear is required — and I’m good. I'll take only as many shoes as I can comfortably wear at one time, and whatever necessary toiletries that cannot easily be gleaned from a motel bathroom, 7-11 or local shelter. I want to travel light and, short of losing weight, this is the best way about it.
There are many excellent reasons to limit your encumbrances to one bag. Packing is faster. Getting through security is almost trivial, as is getting out of the airport. You have fewer things to accidentally leave behind and startle the housekeeping staff. It’s suddenly much easier to be caught up in an exciting cross-country web of intrigue since you won't have to ask the mysterious blonde stranger to wait while you find your garment bag and collection of multi-colored totes. There’s a quiet satisfaction to be had, knowing you can stand up and go anywhere at a moment's notice.
And it’s a satisfaction I relished, before the electronic age. Now I’m finding I may have one or two extra things to haul along.
The fight is on, at about knee level
With the Labor Day weekend past we have now moved beyond the latest round of the most competitive, violent, injury-inducing sport ever devised by man. Also the most spontaneous, as a new match begins as soon as the kids see Uncle Chris.
I’m speaking, of course, of Kid Wrestling.
At every family event, there will be a bout. It begins when a dad, or an uncle, or a close family friend foolishly steps away from the rest of the grown-ups and strolls somewhere where there’s a lot of room and a minimum of breakables within flailing range. Maybe the living room, or the back yard. Very soon thereafter a child will notice him there, vulnerable, and will yell the traditional battle cry of Kid Wrestling: “Get him!”
The truth finally silenced, abducted
Amid controversies surrounding the integrity and trustworthiness of other mainstream media outlets, one source of truth in the world is being put down for good. I suspect aliens.
American Media, Inc., has announced that the Weekly World News, the weekly tabloid that has faithfully exposed the unsuspected sasquatches, the ancient hieroglyphic chocolate recipes, and the brand of salad dressing that will melt 40 pounds from your thighs will stop publishing with their August 27 issue after 28 years of nearly-journalistic excellence. Week in and week out, every Monday morning they revealed the real world for millions of grocery shoppers who had always suspected their neighbor was really a lesbian werewolf.
The moving finger writes; and, having writ, cramps up
I can never become famous.
Not that it’s much of a threat, although if Sanjaya can last this long without being voted off “American Idol,” anything is possible in this great and magical land of ours.
But if the entry level for celebrity should ever plummet, and my autograph ended up on eBay, it would impossible for anyone, including me, to verify its authenticity. No two would match each other, or any other signature I’ve ever scrawled, ever. And not with slight variations, either, I’m talking “Chris Bridges” and “Chblit Bronson” and “Claaaaa Beuuuuduuuuuus.”
As with all other pressing problems such as social injustice, lax child-rearing, and my hairline, I blame computers.
Moving on up, to these heights
Feet together, back straight, head up. The nurse shoved me against the wall and told me something that changed my life forever.
"Five foot ten and a half," she said. "Good, get on the scale, please."
Perhaps this is not significant for you. A minor step in a routine physical examination. But I was stunned to the core of my being, because for the previous 25 years or so it had been the fervent belief of both myself and the Florida Department of Transportation that I topped out at 5' 9". Suddenly, with the skritch of a ballpoint in my medical file, I had gained an inch and a half. Not since I got married had a document changed my life so drastically.
Just a Best Of kind of guy
Gonna watch the Oscars this Sunday?
I am! I wouldn't miss it for all the mongooses in Mongolia! It'll be the most exciting, star-studded, hilarious, suspenseful, and emotional 6 minutes you'll ever see. How could I resist?
That's the YouTube version, of course. I suppose ABC will be broadcasting the whole grueling 18 hours (19 if anyone decides to thank their assistant hairdresser and discuss the politics of conflict-free diamonds) but who's got that kind of time? I just want to see the three or four high points — the opening sequence, the one classy speech, the one funny speech, and the one startling, unscripted moment that everyone will talk about — and I'll watch 'em the next morning over my cereal, just like I did last year. Sorry, Ellen.
Blotting your own fantasy life
Tired of seeing coworkers drag themselves in on Monday morning with rueful expressions, fantastic stories about unlikely social activities, and smeared inkstains on the back of their hands which hint at bars and clubs that are far too exclusive for people like you? So what if you spent your weekend reorganizing your spoons by bowl depth? Shouldn't you get to be in the spotlight every now and then?
The stories are easy, if you can lie. Add an exotic and mysterious person of the appropriate gender who was all over you, mix in some fighting and car chases, neglect not the hard-partying celebrity who dropped in and traded cottage cheese shots with you all night, and describe in loving detail the robbery you thwarted before you passed out. But if you're not up to extemporaneously creating a life, I can help you with the part you really need: the physical evidence. If you want to suggest you've been nightclubbing with the best of them, you need the right hand stamps. I suggest you make your own.
