How to Lose Ten Pounds and Feel Ten Years Younger in Ten Minutes Without Dieting or Exercise

Shave.

However, I think these days there’s less of a difference than there used to be. Plus, I kind of like the beard look better now; it makes me feel like a Civil War General.

Cake Party

Normally, other than baking myself a carrot cake, I hate doing anything for my birthday. But this year it fell on a Saturday, and for some reason I felt like having a party. I was actually quite eager to entertain my friends — to feed em’ and liquor em’ up. Plus, it would be my first birthday party since I turned twenty-two; so it’s been what?…seven years at least. I was over due.

Last year at this time, I had maybe three friends all together. This year, between game night and tennis buddies, I could actually make a guest list. I’ve been a busy bee, and the turnout for my party was great. It was large enough to feel like a crowd, but small enough to flirt …um, I mean talk, with everybody. Some people didn’t show up, but nobody even noticed, which is a great sign.

I had made the snacks for the party a day ahead and at some point realized how Southern it all was. I fixed a bowl of pimento cheese and pretended it was a dip, and everybody loved it. Only the rare Southerners in the crowd were any the wiser. Since it was made with Tillamook mild cheddar instead of Velveeta, I guess you could say I struck a blow against globalized agribusiness by supporting the local food economy, which is exactly what I had in mind, of course.

(If you weren’t lucky enough to inherit your great-grandmother’s pimento cheese recipe, you might want to check out the finalists in the Southern Foodways Alliance Great Pimento Cheese Competition. One of the winners came from the far north — Maryland — which must have cause quite a stir. In her defense, however, she is originally from Georgia, and her recipe really is the best of the bunch. Naturally.)

I also made what we call in Georgia “Cheese Straws,” a “sign of gracious hospitality” according to Lucretia Williamson, my favorite Southern hostess, who was also the source of the recipe. One gal, a native of Arkansas, smiled knowingly when I pointed them out. Her friend, a sweet young man in a bow tie, asked if I knew how to make other “crackers” as well. “Why?,” I asked, “Do you have a lot of dips at home but nothing to eat them with?” Turns out he just likes crunchy food. A lot.

There were other goodies, but the carrot cake was the star of the show. It was practically the whole excuse for the party. I make it from scratch every year and spare no calories in the process. I even double the recipe for the buttercream icing, which by itself weighs three and a half pounds. It is so goddamn rich and, if I do say so myself, so unbelievably delicious. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, rolled their eyes in momentary ecstacy after the first bite.

You’ll have to pardon me here for a moment while I collect myself.

…Okay.

Before I could cut the cake, however, someone grabbed my arm and insisted the crowd sing happy birthday to me. (Again, it’s been, I don’t know, decades since that last happened.) Afterwards I ceremonially blew out a single decorative tea light candle, and then wasted no more time getting to that cake.

Otherwise, it’s all a blur really. Talk talk talk. Drink drink drink. It seems like everyone had fun, and I know I did. When I finally went to bed at 3:30, our kitchen counter was piled high with dishes and bottles. Every plate, fork, and glass we owned sat dirty, and I felt bad for leaving such a mess. But just this once, it was all going to wait until the morning.

Happy Monday – Birthday Party

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling. This week, they’re actually people I know. I had a little birthday party on Saturday night, and here are some of the guys who were there.

 Zaq brought me flowers, the only ones I’ve ever gotten.

 Lin & Mike were stuck together like glue all night.

 Mark & Andy. They couldn’t stop smiling.

 Christopher, Zaq, Scott, Brian, Raul, & Tim.

Boys, boys, boys — happy birthday to me! There were plenty of women there too, but somehow I didn’t get any pictures of them.

Lucky Doughnut

On Friday, a very handsome Russian dentist with a caring but authoratative manner gave me a root canal. I’ll never forget the way he gently vibrated my cheek as he injected me with anaesthetic. Sigh.

Nonetheless, at certain points in the procedure it hurt like a motherfucker. Plus I was warned that if I came in with pain, I would leave with pain. It would take a while before I would feel completely healed. Keep my expectations in check.

I had not slept much in over a week; every few hours the pain would wake me. So when I got home on Friday, I slept all the rest of the daylight hours on what was the second longest day of the year. Then I went to bed again at my normal time and slept for the whole night. By Saturday I was finally myself again — almost pain free and thoroughly well rested.

The difference was unbelievable. For a couple of weeks I had had no energy, neither mental nor physical. I had sloughed off on my work, barely exercised, and generally been a sluggish zombie. Then, in only twenty-four hours, I was healthy and happy and energized again. It was kind of amazing.

I was reminded of this study that came out last year (maybe — I can’t find it online) that turned the old idea about richer people being healthier on its head. It’s the other way around actually. The healthier you are, the more you can work and make money; so it’s not that rich people are healthier. It’s that healthier people make more money and spend less on medical care. Your health quite literally is your wealth.

The Last Hurrah
Though I had done no work all week and was anxious to catch up, I had committed to a volunteer shift at the annual Multnomah County Bike Fair, the final event in the two weeks of Pedalpalooza. Since I’d been under the weather, I had missed everything except the opening night party and ride. So in addition to a sense of obligation, I also just wanted to get in at least a little bike fun.

For several hours, I checked ID’s at the beer garden and accidentally stuck sticky wrist bands onto many a man’s arm hair. (There are some big meaty wrists out there, by the way. Kind of interesting.) The young guy working with me had a bright red sunburned faced, with the distinct white silhouette of his sunglasses around his eyes. He had ridden his new touring bike all the way out to Cascade Locks earlier that morning on a whim (more than eighty miles round trip). I asked him how the ride was and he stared off into the distance and smiled a big, toothy, crazy man’s smile.

“Beautiful.”

From time to time while checking IDs, yet another gray-haired whiner would give me a look of annoyed disbelief when I insisted on seeing his liscence. Women would pull on their gray hair and say, “I earned this.” Men would arch an eyebrow and try the alpha male stare down, asking in a withering tone “you’re kidding, right?”

It was always a contest of wills in every case, them holding out their wrists and me doing nothing. I mean, I wouldn’t actually give a shit if a bus load middle-schoolers end up chugging PBR on the main stage, but the OLCC officers were literally right next to me sometimes. I wasn’t going to risk getting the organizers in trouble, especially not for a bunch of self-entitled assholes who think that rules no longer apply to them just because they got old.

One bald, potbellied guy complained, “Maybe when I’m forty I won’t have to do this anymore.” And I was happy to reply, “Well, I’m forty, and I still had to show my ID just to volunteer.” So fuck you and your whiny attitude.

Ultimately though, holding the big, hairy wrists outweighed handling the big, annoying assholes. I had a nice time and even stayed late to help break down. Eventually, asparagus & chevre pizza showed up for the volunteers, and the location of the after-party was quietly passed around. As night fell, a hundred or so people, myself included, mounted their bikes and set off on another impromptu group ride, which toured inner-southeast and downtown, covering about fifteen miles. As we rode, other cyclists joined in, and eventually at least two hundred strong we landed at the “love party” (aka the after-party) just before midnight.

Alas, it was just a giant crowd in an empty lot downtown with guys performing bike tricks. Didn’t know anybody. Nothing to drink. No reason to stick around. I was glad to be old enough to say “I’m too old for this.”

I buzzed over to Voodoo Doughnuts for a quick snack before heading home. There was a large crowd on the sidewalk, including a few guys in tuxedos, and the queue was snaking out the door. I waited with my bike in the shorter line at the outside window, and when I got my usual maple cruller, I was told “it’s taken care of.” Some guy in a wedding party (ah, the tuxedos) was springing for everybody’s doughnuts.

It was indeed my lucky day.

I Really Believed There Would Be a Magical Time

Several weeks back, I saw this “secret” disappointment at the PostSecret blog. It reads: “I really believed there would be a magical time when I grew up, after the spots and before the wrinkles.”

My first thought when I read it was that that’s the time that I’m living in right now (at least for a little while longer, anyway). I’m glad I realize it.

Sophomore Citizen

All of a sudden, I’m considered middle-aged. Six months ago, while still barely hanging on to my thirties, I was in a kind of life stage limbo, at least as far as labels were concerned. But then one day I turned forty, and just like that I’m in a category commonly associated with grandparents. Now I frequently hear my own contemporaries refering to themselves as middle-aged. (And every time, I think, “Shut up!“)

A recent photo. Note the silver. (Bigger)

Naturally, I am inclined to reject that designation. I prefer to think of middle age as mid-adulthood, which would happen somewhere around fifty-five. That means I’ve got years to go (he desperately repeats to himself ).

New York Times columnist William Safire, who writes commentaries on language use, addressed this very subject and considered several alternatives to the term middle-aged. My favorite by far, mainly for its humorous appeal, was “sophomore citizen.” Also in its favor is that “sophomore” connotes a certain early middleness, not a kid any more, but far from old. And it’s not one step away from senior citizen either; I’ve still got all of this stage and junior citizenship between me and that decrepit state.

So that’s what I’m telling myself. I’m at the sophomore stage of life. Still have things to try. Still have things to learn. Still not old, thankyouverymuch. And when anybody in his early forties calls himself middle-aged, I’ll know just what to say. No way, man, we’re sophomore citizens.

At YMA MLP: Halfway Humanity by William Safire.