Giving Umbrage

Clean Slate 2010: Happy New Year!

 

As the yearly cycle of life would have it, I’ve been a bit beleaguered by the ongoing holiday onslaught (aka ‘cheer’), as well as, the lovely corporate year-end season.  This has made blogobility next to non-existent as inspiration and clear-headedness have proven to be elusive.  That is, until I began to contemplate New Years 2010 and the possibilities of a clean slate…just the sort of thing to make the rusty sleigh bells in my head stop their gentle jingling.  What better time of year to become inspired, set aside past failures, and begin laying the groundwork for new ones! 

 

Basically, it occurred to me this year that I have become tired of reviewing resolutions of bygone years and realizing the extent of my missed opportunities and procrastinations. This year, I have determined to toss aside the usual list of New Year’s Resolutions for a new improved version of my own coinage that is ‘attainable’.   The grand old days of ‘charting my family lineage back to the Pilgrims’ will be replaced with ‘being able to name both sets of my great grandparents’.   These individual aspirations for 2010 don’t, in my humble opinion, merit the term ‘Resolutions’.  Such a word as ‘Resolution’ has too much in common with other words of stately power, like ‘Revolution’ – there will be no Resolutions or Revolutions in 2010, only a calculated slow crawl out of mediocrity.

 

So, I have broken my new improved approach to Resolutions down into two buckets:

 

1. Resolutlets – I introduce to you the Resolution’s less intrusive cousin, the ‘Resolutlet’.  These small promises to myself are like finger food for the year, allowing me to pat myself on the back with small achievements as though I am popping a few wheat thins or nibbling on a mini quiche – all the satisfaction and half the calories of regular Resolutions.

    

2. Avoidolutions - Not liking the negativity of certain Resolutions but still believing there is a fair amount to ‘avoid’ each year, I have created the Avoidolution to capture those activities or things that one should think about avoiding, purely for safety reasons or as otherwise required by a court order.

 

The final beautiful point about Resolutlets and Avoidolutions is that you are able to change and revise them at will so don’t plan on crying over missed opportunities as 2010 comes to a close…simply snip the ends and clip the wings of certain pesky Resolutlets and Avoidolutions.   

 

2010 is going to be great!

 

2010 Resolutlets 

•               Read a single book by Edgar Allen Poe

•               Find Andorra on a map

•               Call someone I haven’t spoken to in 3 years

•               Do something completely selfless

•               Play a game of chess against a live person

•               Hug a Brazilian

•               Beat my sister at Texas Holdem’ (yes, my actual 'sister',      not some poker ace with the nickname ‘Sister’)

•               Savor the last 3 points on my Driver’s License

•               Listen more closely when my mother tries to teach me       Bridge (note - mothers shouldn’t use the word ‘tricks’         so much)

•             Pronounce ‘Amuse Bouche’ correctly and use the word        ‘Quixotic’   in a sentence

•             Be kinder to my Gall Bladder (e.g., limit rusty                       bucket’s  exposure to jalapenos)

•             Use those papery seat covers found in public restrooms

•            Trust a dog

•             Make a child laugh until milk comes out their nose

•            Dress like a pirate when it’s not Halloween

•            After several bottles of wine, sing ‘Edelweiss’ with friends

•           Go snowshoeing

 

2010 Avoidolutions

 

•  Anything made by Ed Hardy or even at this point, his family (e.g., Susan Hardy’s line of tattoo inspired oven mitts)

•    The words: value added, circle back, right set, level set, or even swing set

•    Any alcohol that comes from a newly discovered Amazonian fruit or otherwise has a distorted letter in its name (e.g., Muchaça)

•     Neon

•     Female bartenders with male names (e.g., Ricky)

•    Cops named Lee Oswald, especially a cop that doesn’t know why I am chuckling and asking if his name really is ‘Lee Oswald’

•     Losing the last 3 points on my Driver’s License

•      Lady Gaga

•      Laughing at someone who just slipped on the ice

•    Cursing or at least cutting out a few of George Carlin’s ‘7 Words You Can’t Say on TV’ from my daily vernacular

 

Happy New Year from the Staff and Management of Giving Umbrage!

 

*Final note – items of paramount importance (e.g., being the best father possible) are ongoing goals captured in one’s personal unpublished constitution.  

 

 

Tis' the Season...

 

Tis the season’ …for aging.  I turn 38 this month and it’s sparked some reflection.  For example, I seem to remember thinking ‘35’ was cool and sophisticated, ‘36’ less cool but still sophisticated and ‘37’, potentially ‘stately’ but no longer cool.  So, ‘38’ feels as if I am being moved to a slightly more serious row of cellblocks, one step closer to ‘dead youth walking’.  What’s recently occurred to me is that I may, in fact, be ‘middle age’.  I’ve attempted to confirm this ubiquitous label but there doesn’t seem to be a solid definition, just the foggy air of terms like ‘Over the Hill’ and the scent of mothballs...but no clarity.    

 

Initially, it occurred to me that I should look to history for guidance on middle age as history repeats itself…much like old people.  After some contemplation, I noticed there were potentially direct correlations like, the ‘Middle Ages’.   Most scholars believe this time period began with the fall of the Roman Empire around 410 and continued through the 1300’s.  The term "Dark Ages" was also coined to describe what historians considered to be a social and cultural decline during the early periods of the Middle Ages; this included a time period defined by pervasive warring, political unrest, plague, and torture.  This must be relevant.  Maybe early middle age is much like the Dark Ages, a time period marked by social and cultural decline (the purchase of a sports car and internet dating), the plague or other health hysterias (your first hernia operation), torture (enumerable responsibilities), and of course factional warring and civil unrest (divorce).   Luckily, my teeth aren’t really all that bad and I have no rats in my apartment.  Life is good.

 

In the end, history failed to offer me much direction so I considered whether mathematically, I was just plain in the ‘middle’ of it all.   By most accounts, it appears that the life expectancy in the U.S. for ‘someone born today’ is 78.  That’s what we miss when we reference life expectancy…the ‘someone born today’ part.  It doesn’t say…’the person reading this table can expect to live to 80’.  What a useless statistic! - nobody ‘born today’ cares how long they are going to live as they have a lot bigger things on their mind, like breastfeeding.  I digress.  Regardless, I was able to track down the fact that for those born in 1971 they could, at that time, expect to live to 68.   It would thus appear I hit ‘Over the Hill’ 4 years ago at the ripe old age of 34.  Sigh, another futile attempt at clarity.

 

All I really know is that I am aging and somewhere between mature youth and the Middle Ages.  I have begun a list of observations with the hope that I can come to some conclusive test that pinpoints my exact whereabouts in this ‘process’.   

 

A few observations from the past year:

 

• I no longer find fads cool.  Example – I dislike neon, I disliked it in the Eighties and I dislike it more now…and it’s back. 
• I find myself living through something horrible ‘twice’ (e.g., Neon); experiencing cyclical fashion trends should be a factor in any aging formula.
• I discovered my first nose hair and after some alarm determined to ‘pluck it’ with a tweezers. Given that nose hairs are actually connected to your toes and belly button through a series of pissed off nerve endings…the ‘plucking’ resulted in profound tearing of the eyes and much pain.
• I discovered my first rogue hair growing on my ear.  Being scarred from the nose hair incident, it took me three days to deal with the hair. I ultimately found that I could ‘pluck’ rogue ear hairs.
• I purchased a nose hair clipper.  Note: nobody in their 20’s owns a nose hair clipper.
• I realized the coolest movie from my youth pegs the cheese meter (e.g., Top Gun) and further discovered that a movie star I used to love when pubescent hormones choked off my sanity…looks a tad weathered (e.g., Molly Ringwold). 
• For the first time in my life I found, <gulp>, an instance, <gulp>, where the music was too loud (e.g., Motorhead concert).
• I found myself at a Motorhead concert.
• I hurt myself doing something I used to be pretty good at: example - I played racquetball for the first time in 8 years and without stretching...served a mean, ill intentioned, serve to my opponents backhand.  In turn, this abrupt bodily action caused me to pull my hamstring: total playing time = 3 minutes.
• I realized that something I used to be good at…nobody does anymore (e.g., racquetball).

 

More to come...

 

*note: work and holiday season are putting a serious damper on blogobility.