Random Thoughts

A few thoughts that have filtered through the frontal lobe as the monotonous grind of house building slogs along:

Age had always been an irrelevant number to me, but the longer you are upright and breathing, the more it seems that events conspire to make you think about your age. For instance, ever since I hit sixty I have noticed more people my age, and even younger, in the obituaries. How can you not think of getting older after noticing how often members of your age group are taking the dirt nap? It’s a chicken or the egg thing. Has it always been that way, or am I noticing it more because I’ve started to pay attention to the obituaries?

Your body also has a nasty way of reminding you how old you are. My teeth never bothered me until recently. I have to pee more frequently than ever before, and it isn’t because of the MS (that’s a separate issue, one of which requires me to wear pads). Age spots are beginning to appear, my hair gets greyer/whiter by the month, and is thinning to such a degree that I need to wear a baseball cap every time I go outside otherwise various parts my head will burn.

Physically, my once taut bod is starting to sag. I suspect women lament the day when their boobs start to drift south, but that also happens with men. When our pecs lose their tone, man-boobs are the often the result. I’m not there yet, primarily because of all the work on the new house. But I can see them getting to that point. Yuck!

Be that as it may, I mistakenly thought men got off relatively easy on the sagging front. That changed when I noticed that the sack that keep the boys close to my body has begun to sag in a similar fashion. This may not seem like a big deal, but I like to lounge in sweat shorts or sweat pants in commando fashion when I am at home during the evening. With a sack that sags and swings, the act of sitting down, primarily because that process can be clumsy, compliments of the MS, and sometimes results in them getting pinched between my legs, or they hit the surface I’m am trying to sit on with some force before the buttocks can cushion the blow. It’s like shock therapy that sends currents of pain reverberating down one’s legs, and it is yet another thing I have to pay attention to. Hey Tom! See what you have to look forward to?

Speaking of aging, is it my imagination, or do fat cells tend to gather in men’s stomachs and in women’s hips and butt as they get older? I’ve observed men I haven’t seen in a while with guts protruding over and beyond their beltlines, and women whose bottoms look like they are significantly larger and wider.

How come a women’s purse is as big as a duffle bag, and men’s wallets are the size of an index card?

And while we are on that line of questioning, why do women bring their purse and as many as three other bags to work while men only need a wallet?

From the Men Are From Mars and Women are from Venus line of thought: Most men I know, yours truly included, can get a call from a good friend they haven’t spoken to in months and the conversation lasts fifteen to twenty minutes. Women get on the phone with a girlfriend they spoke to within the last several days, perhaps even yesterday, and talk for over an hour. Why is that?

I remember Connecticut weather being very predictable when I was a kid. Each season was what is was supposed to be: cold snowy winters, warm and sometimes hot summers. Spring started cool and gradually got warmer as summer approached, and the exact opposite happened as Autumn morphed into Winter. Now? This winter was temperate with little snow. Spring was wet and cold, and this summer has been ghastly hot and humid. We just had the hottest July on record. Who knows what the fall will bring. Two years ago we were in a drought situation where water rationing was being seriously considered, then we made up for it in less than six months. Call it what you will: global warming, climate change, whatever. Something is going on, and if the powers that be don’t do something to attempt to remedy the situation, the our planet will take care of itself in the form of another Ice Age or something similarly catastrophic. It won’t happen in my lifetime, but perhaps my inland Connecticut home will become ocean-front property in my son’s lifetime.

The only good thing about the Red Sox free-fall is that I won’t have any distractions when it comes time to move.

And speaking of the Sox and teams in general, if a team has such an extraordinary year like they did last year, then follow that with an unexpectedly bad season, which year was the fluke?

I’m dreading the 2020 election cycle. It’s going to be long, tedious, nasty, cringe-worthy and supremely depressing, especially if the outcome doesn’t change the current status quo. I wish I could sleep through it all and wake up on election day. Then I’d have the option of being optimistic or going back to sleep for another four years.

As I have gotten older, I have become more and more like my father. I react like him about many things. I worry about the same things he did (and didn’t), I hear his words leave my lips and I look more and more like him. It’s taught me that no matter how much we swear we will  never be like our parents, we turn into one of their clones.  In my case, assuming it’s true, I hope the health and longevity he enjoyed is part of the package. That might be too much to expect with a disease like MS, but one can always hope.

If any of you decide to build a house, be warned. You become consumed by the process at some point in time, and lose all sense of time and perspective during the process. Nothing ever goes according to plan, it costs a lot more than it was supposed to, and as you get towards the end of the process you wonder why the hell you decided on such a foolish venture. Then you move, are established in the new place, and wonder what all the fuss and angst was about.  I’m still in the why the hell portion of this journey. As much as I enjoy summer, I can’t wait for it to be over because we’ll be in the new place, will have sold (hopefully) the old place, and I will feel settled for the first time in almost a year.