Time Is Ticking

We’ve heard the saying before: “Life is what you make of it”. Death, on the other hand, is what it is, and we can’t make anything out of it other than the fact that when it is over, we leave an empty hospital bed and a bereaved family. This is when perspective, often guided by religious theories, ancient philosophies, even medical science, plays a crucial role in our lives. Life is not just what you make of it, it’s how you perceive it. We know our hearts beat and our blood flows, but it is our perspective on life, what it means and more importantly, that we will eventually die, that inevitably leads to a full, richer life. Psalms 23 tells us, “Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I shall fear no evil.” I argue that, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of life, I shall fear no evil, for I know how this is going to end. I die. After accepting that notion, the question becomes simple. Are you living while you are alive, or are you simply a life waiting to die?

 

Ever since that miraculous day when we are born, our bodies began to grow, and along with arms and legs, a life was formed. First, bones and flesh and organs and a workable heart, then, personality, character, and the ability to give and receive love. However, once the baby exits the mother’s womb, a clock begins to tick. The hour-glass that is our lives is flipped over, and though we measure our lives in years, even celebrating the passing of our precious time with annual birthday parties, the sand in the hourglass continues to fall, the clock continues to tick. There are no batteries to take out in order to stop or slow the clock down, and there is no sleep bar to press in order to halt the clocks’ precise function. We live by the clock, we die by the clock. The living or dying part, however, is up to you.

 

You can look at this ticking clock in two very different, contrasting ways. It can be viewed as the ticking clock of life, of growth, of living. These are the seconds of our lives, and we shall celebrate each tick. This would be the positive, though maybe ignorant way of viewing our lives. This view holds that the clock ticks, and we are alive, and somebody throw some streamers in the air for god sake and let’s have a party! The clock ticks, and there are first birthdays. Fortieth birthdays. Love. Marriage. Kids. Celebrations. And the clock ticks. There are new experiences eagerly awaiting us around every corner. Words like the “future” are thrown around as if it’s guaranteed. We dream big dreams and sometimes we even achieve them. We pop champagne. We live life. And the clock ticks. And every morning we turn the page on the calendar and tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. If we don’t pay attention to the passing of days, or we choose to ignore that fact of life (or death), then we are living life with a blind-fold on. We choose not to remind ourselves every day that we are going to die, because that would be terribly depressing. However, isn’t acknowledging the fact that we will one day die the most effective way to remind us that we are still alive?

 

Therein lies the other, more troubling way to view this ticking clock theory. It can be viewed as quite literally “a measure of the time of our lives”. We are born. The clock begins to tick. However, one could say we are losing time rather than gaining it. This is a countdown. We will one day die, no matter if you want to believe your doctor or not, and therefore all of us, in a sense, have an allotted time set for our lives (maybe even pre-set). First birthdays. Love. Marriage. Kids. But if the clock continues to tick, are these events, these moments of our lives, simply just fleeting? Temporary? Moments of life simply “passing” us along on our road-trip to death? We know a clock never ticks backwards, nor do calendar pages flip in reverse, so what’s done is done. Yesterday is over. It’s a memory and we know that our memories deteriorate. That first birthday becomes the tree falling in the forest with nobody around to hear it fall.

 

Spoiler alert. I am going to ruin the end of the movie that is your life for you right now. The light at the end of the tunnel is death. There. Sorry,  no surprise ending. No magical kiss with the beautiful damsel after saving the treasure and getting away from the bad guys. No, the twist at the end of the third act of our lives is no twist at all. We die. Which means, we are dying. Which means, we have been dying all along. The moments of our lives are just that. Tick, tock.

 

This brings me to my overall thesis regarding the ticking clock theory. It can be argued that our entire lives are simply a series of years before our impending deaths. The counter-argument to the positive thinkers, who believe that the ticking clock is the beauty of life itself, measured in time, is quite simple. To these optimists I must remind them of one terrifying word: aging.  Human beings are an amazing collection of flesh and bone and molecules and blood, however, we are just that. Beings. And, we are “being human” until the very day we die. Therefore, we are a life form that, from inception, is put on a straight-forward, one-way, double yellow-lined highway to death.

 

No two roads converge in a wood. There is no road less taken. There is only one road. And as you get older, you will realize that the road is bumpy and full of pot holes. You will develop conditions. Arthritis. Headaches. Insomnia. Maybe even diseases. Diabetes. Alzheimers. Cancer. Your bones will become weaker. Your skin becomes thin, and bruises easily. Your back aches. Your cholesterol spikes. Muscles atrophy and we realize that “being human” means living, and living in turn, inevitably means dying. Tick, tock.

 

Now, I am far more spiritual than I am scientific, but in the case of our lives, I believe we must first accept the facts. If you’re short in stature, buy clothes that fit. If you have a disease, live with it the best you can. If a loved one dies, you can’t begin to mourn their death until you accept the finality that they are gone. Therefore, we must embrace our own death in order to understand the significance of our lives. We must learn to accept the fact that we are aging, and our challenge to adapt to the changes in our bodies, no matter how painful or problematic that may be, and live the best we can through each tick, and through each tock. If we accept the fact that we are living beings and therefore we are dying beings, than we can truly “live in the moment”. We can expand the time between each tick and each tock simply by changing our mindset and reminding ourselves that everything is temporary. In short, simply by acknowledging the fact that we are dying reminds us that we are still alive.

 

Our clocks don’t come with instruction manuals, but our bodies come with brains. Liveonnetwork.com is a one-stop shop, a place to go to buy items that can enrich our lives, and pad our seats for the bumpy car-ride of life. Yes, we are dying. All of us. Even the youngest of us are going to die. Therefore, if death is going to happen, let it happen in the end, not somewhere in the middle, where due to aging, you just decide to kick the clock off the nightstand and stay in bed. No, get out and live! Live every tick and every tock to the best of your ability, not for the sake of life, but simply for the reality of death. It will eventually come and there will be nothing you can do. But today, right now, this moment, you are alive, you are breathing. So, until that final tick rattles off, live like you’re going to die, and your life will be that much more whole.

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A Nagging Parent

Webster’s dictionary defines the word nagging as follows: continually faultfinding, complaining, or petulant: It goes on to list an example of how to use toe word in a sentence: a nagging parent.

 

My question is, is there any other sample sentence they could have gone with? Sure, a nagging girlfriend or wife, nagging kids, but to properly convey the complexity and overall power of the most debated word since appeasement (which, incidentally, is the only way to avoid the traditional “nag”), Webster’s Dictionary decided to go with a nagging parent.  Imagine the wordsmiths at the Webster’s headquarters, probably not a lively bunch but for the sake of argument, they must have sat around a table debating a sample sentence for nagging, when their cells went off in unison. I imagine them all looking down at their vibrating cell phones to see …Mom calling. What could she want? “Don’t forget to pay your bills”. “Will you be at the nephews party in four months from now?” “You left this and you left that at the house”, as if I’d never be going back there again. A nagging parent.

 

It took me until the ripe age of thirty, which either shows my final rise to maturity, and newfound ability to deal with the nagging parent, or, it shows my stunted growth from age 1 to 29 in regards to understanding the role of parents in our lives. I have come to a rather warm, comforting conclusion. It isn’t about the “nag”, it’s about control. It’s about being a parent, no matter how old your children get. I believe that children become these appendages that suck away finances, relaxation, and a good nights’ sleep, so in return, can Mom and Dad occasionally “nag”? You bet your ass they can.

 

As I had dinner with my mother and father the other night, and we went around the house so my mother could show me the glasses I left out, the tea bag still in the sifter, the trash not properly disposed of, uneaten food left in wrapped up paper-towels by the computer, I stopped and took a deep breath, a major departure from my usual behavior of getting in my car and leaving, preferably stopping at the nearest liquor store with my therapist on speed dial. This time, however, I took a deep breath, and realized that the “nagging”, the rules of the house, the parenting, is all they have left as they watch their children grow, which I imagine is a Sisyphean task. There is nothing like watching your children getting older, getting married, moving to a new state, to remind you that you are aging. Therefore, “nagging” is a psychological sport to Mom and Dad, of which they shall receive the gold.

 

So, when your parents nag, don’t blow up and get mad, protesting that “you’re not a child anymore” even though you left the toilet seat up and mom nearly fell in. Stop and realize that deep within the dark black hole that is nagging, exists love, the constant need to parent, teach, impose rules (even if this concept is Stalinistic), and grasp any last element of control as the years pass by, the kids get older, and Mom is left trying to explain the new cable system to dad. I argue that nagging may actually be an enjoyable activity for Mom and Dad. A torturous sense of imposing authority that they may actually deeply find recreationally fun. However, it is your response to the nagging that can either escalate this to an all out insurgency, or an obedience of the rule of house law.

 

Take another approach with Mom and Dad when they are on a nagging marathon. Nod, smile, and if all else fails, hop in the car, speed away, and complain to your brother, a partner and comrade in the battle vs. Mom and Dad.

 
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Heros Among Us

 

We create super-heroes as a means of illustrating the theme of hope in our lives. Be it The Incredible Hulk or Spiderman, super-heroes come into the roughest if situations, and save the day with their unique skills, like throwing a spider-web or ripping a person in two with astounding strength. But heroes don’t only exist on the silver screen. In fact, they are everywhere, assuming you know where to look. For starters, turn on CNN and watch our soldiers risking their lives and often losing them while fighting a war that most no longer believe in. Pick up the newspaper and read a speech by Barack Obama, a man who has taken Martin Luther King’s dreams and made them an honest-to-God reality. Or, if you want, you can look even closer, and you may be surprised at what you find.

 

Look to those family members sitting next to you on the couch. You may be inspired to know that these very people are capable of being heroes in their own right. It goes without saying that for me, my mother and father are heroes, not for spinning webs or flying through the air with a silly, red cape on in order to stop crime; but for both raising a tight-knit family, and maintaining a happy, successful marriage. However, the first time I saw real heroism in my own life was toward the end of both of my grandparents’ lives, when I stood with my Mom and Dad and watched them deal with the fact that they were losing their parents. Watching them cry broke my heart into a thousand pieces. For years my parents showed me how to live. Now, they were showing me how to be selfless and heroic in the event of a parents’ death. They bent over backwards to make the ordeal as easiest as possible for my grandparents, while simultaneously dealing with the flood of painful emotions flowing through their own bodies. In a sense, they too were at war. The war that happens as we get older, and eventually die. They were losing their parents, but the entire time they were making sure my grandparents would feel no pain, and have the best treatment. In addition, my mother and father made sure that their children, my brother and I, were okay. To cast such a wide net of concern at this moment in life, to me, was simply heroic.

 

I come from a generation with a volunteer army. We weren’t forced to go to war to prove ourselves as heroes. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve ever been called on to behave like a hero ever in our daily lives. The ME Generation, as we are called, doesn’t have to risk very much; our only fear is erasing our hard drives or losing our ipods. There is no great demand for us to be heroes, and for most of us, we aren’t about to protest that fact. However, for each and every one of us, we will one day begin the slow, grueling, and painfully introspective process of aging. Our health will deteriorate and we will be reminded of our own mortality every time we wake up, and every time we lie down to sleep, and it is how we handle this most challenging phase of our lives, this third and final act before the curtain drops, that defines us as people capable of the most heroic of deeds.

 

My grandmother and grandfather both suffered from horrific forms of cancer, the black plague of our modern lives. It went from diagnosis and acceptance, to painful and intensely uncomfortable forms of treatments that, though they may extend life by months, always ended up being futile in the end. We all eventually learn that painful truth; “our arms are simply too short to box with God,” and when all is said and done, when the man upstairs feels it’s your time, you can’t text him asking for another few days. I imagine he’s stubborn like that, you know, once he makes a decision. My grandparents both learned of their conditions and, in turn, their irrevocable death sentences, and the diagnosis came complete with a ticking clock as to how many years, or more to the point, months, they have left to live. I can’t imagine getting that news. How do you spend the rest of the day? How do you get through the rest of the day? My grandparents took it in stride, as though they were in the middle of a basketball game and they simply got called for a foul, but had no plans to stop playing. They both decided they were going to live with the disease, not die with it. I argue that interpreting such horrifying news in this fashion, is nothing less then heroic.

 

Then came the treatments. Chemo-therapy. The blessing and the curse. The blessing is that it may extend one’s life; the curse is that it may extend ones life, though the quality of living is nothing short of brutal. And again, even after my grandmother moved back home with my family, and my grandfather went through it in his own house, with his loving wife by his side, they refused to let these harsh medical treatments steal any days away from them, not as long as they were still breathing. Their hair fell out. They became lethargic. They were constantly throwing up with the littlest of warnings. They slept through terrible aches and pains and sores, and woke up to experience those aches and pains and sores throughout the day. Yet, still, they both refused to let the symptoms, no matter how painful, steal a single minute of their lives. It was during this period that I was able to talk with them, be by their side, and for the first time, really get to know who my grandma and grandpa were as people. In one word, they were heroes.

 

Then came the end game, a game I was too young to have ever seen or experienced. The medication had extended life for as long as it could, but upstairs somebody was calling and that call had to be answered. My family knew it, and we couldn’t fight the tears. However, in that cold, hallway corridor at the hospital, I paused for a minute and was troubled by the fact that, surely Grandma and Grandpa know that their ends are near, and how I would feel if I knew that about myself. I held both my grandfather’s hand, and a year later my grandmother’s, at the very moment of their passing. I felt like a reporter embedded in real life, because this was as real as it gets. And watching them at their final moments, I did not see fear, or cowardice, or even a struggle. What I saw was peace. My grandfather even managed a last, forever remembered smile, the image I have of him to this day. And it was in the midst of their last breaths that they taught me a lesson about facing the unknown, accepting ones fate, and going through the final curtain call while maintaining dignity, and emanating love. Maybe it sounds too poetic, or too beautiful to be believed. But this is the truth of my grandparents passing. They showed strength, dignity, and moments of love, as if these were the lasting themes they wanted to leave me with, and were successful in doing so. To maintain, to show strength and love, and to teach, whether consciously or subconsciously, a grandchild how to face the end of life like they did; well for me, that takes a hero.

 

My only surviving grandmother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s, one of natures’ most cruel and evil diseases; one that begins slowly only to take a rapid turn to dementia like the jolt of a roller coaster on a free-fall down the tracks. My grandmother talks, but her words make no sense. She looks at me but she doesn’t see. She hears me, but cannot respond. I watch her, and I wonder if she even knows what is going on behind the mask that used to be her sweet, reactive face. Maybe she does. She may not understand words, or remember who I am or who her family members are, but she must know that the end is near. And it is in facing this harsh reality with a smile and holding my hand that my grandmother, stuck between the functioning world, yet trapped within a body that is failing rapidly, that I see heroism.

 

Therefore, we must view aging as the most heroic feat of all of our lives. For soldiers, war is a brutal, dirty business, yet the adrenaline rush carries them through the harshest of battles. It is when they get home and the healing begins, that they face Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries, the loss of limbs, that the real challenge becomes apparent. How do you live life with the certain knowledge that death is waiting right around the corner. How do you go through the process of aging without self-pity, and without letting the physical ailment translate into giving up mentally? These are the biggest challenges of our lives, and it is how we face these moments that, in many ways, defines us as people. Because we don’t know what happens after death (though we have our respective beliefs), we are essentially headed at high-speeds into the unknown, and aging is the vehicle of transport. Like soldiers, we must hold our heads high, never stop fighting, and cherish every single breath we take while we are still on earth. If we face our eventual deaths in this fashion, we too will be heroes. 

 

My grandparents lived hard-working, depression-era lives and struggled through hardships. They filled my head with colorful stories of laboring jobs, finding love, getting married and having kids, and they must have assumed that these were the moments that define them as people. Now, of course these moments are definitive of how a person has lived their life, yet I wonder if my grandparents knew that the real glimpse into whom they truly were as people began during the process of aging and culminated at the time of their passing. When you’re young, you never think your grandparents, or your parents for that matter, will get older and begin to age, let alone, (I even hated to say it) die. But it was how they faced that final leg of the journey, that last lap around the track, when I began to learn the strength and dignity and love they were so full of. Yet, standing there in that hospital room on those final days, I also learned something I had always suspected, but finally got to see. They were brave. Enormously courageous, even at the hardest, most frightening time and as far as I’m concerned, that is the real essence of a hero.

 

Therefore, as you begin to age, and your body changes, or maybe you’re diagnosed with a terrifying disease, don’t just cash out and wait for the end. In fact, I imagine that if we all really stopped and realized that all of us will one day die, and we accepted that fact, maybe we would live even richer lives. Do not be ashamed that your body isn’t working the way that it used to, and do not be afraid of what comes after that final breath, because there are people watching you. Kids and grand-kids. And we are watching, while at the same time knowing we will be in that hospital bed ourselves one day. My grandparents showed me that if you’ve lived a full life; and if you are surrounded by those that love you; and if you cherished everyday as if it were your last, when that last day comes, you will inevitably graduate from someone suffering from the perils of aging, to someone who bravely faced their own passing, and in turn, became a real hero.

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LIKE MOTHER, LIKE SON

There is no more conflicting, loving, tumultuous, and often downright mentally brutalizing relationship as the one a child has with his mother, and equally, how a mother relates to her son. The parent vs. child battles began probably around the time when Moses saw the burning bush, only to come home, and with great excitement tell his mother of the inspirational vision, for which she most likely replied, “Oh Jesus, Moses, you and that over-active imagination of yours.” And in return, Moses likely stormed off into his room, slamming the door, only opening it to slide a DO NOT ENTER sign for which he leaves swinging menacingly on the doorpost.

 

It’s time to look inside the slammed doors, and access the challenges for both the mother, as well as the son in the regards to the multitude of situations that come about through life. For a mother, from the moment her child escapes the womb, an unexplainable bond is formed, whereas the mother has a whole new reason to live. For some, post-pardom depression may ensue, and the birth of her child may serve as an unwelcomed reminder of her own aging process. Either way, it’s when that cute, adorable, slime-covered infant grows to become a slime-covered teenager, when the real problems begin to arise.

 

The mother, once an ambitious, hard-working young person with dreams and aspirations of her own, must set them aside, allow another woman to break the glass ceiling while she commits to staying at home to raise a child, which arguable is a tougher job than coming up with an exit plan for the Iraq war. After finally accepting that raising children will be her “job”, and then coming to the conclusion that it is an incredibly hard, respectable, wildly important, non-stop job with no set hours other than the unfortunate twenty-four hour on call shift, she aims to develop a relationship with the child, especially as he or she gets older, that is one of life advice, direction, guidance, love, and for us lucky ones, friendship. It is at this stage that despite the daily arguments and crass things said during a fight about curfew, grades, girls, bad words, elbows on the table, unfolded sheets, clothes left in the hamper, food left out to rot, that mom and son begin to grow close, learning that despising one another isn’t quite the same as “I want you dead”.

 

Then, the boy goes off to college, leaving Mom with nothing to look forward to than endless hours alone with a computer-obsessed yet also computer-illiterate dad, and sleepless nights of worrying if her college bound graduate is alive and happy, or in the ER with alcohol poisoning and an STD. Once the child graduates, mom begins to worry about him finding a suitable mate (preferably Jewish), a steady job (preferably one that will raise her friends’ eyebrows); but either way, two of the most challenging goals in life. This concern can often create a rift between mother and son, and it’s during this phase that the mother learns an important lesson that she herself once taught her child, but in the tradition of life moving full circle, she must relearn herself: the importance of space, making your own mistakes, and eventually the hardest challenge of all for a woman who pushed a human life with arms, legs, and disappointingly a wise-ass personality from her body: letting go.

 

Now, let’s observe this journey from the eyes of the child. No, he will not be grateful for the act of delivery until he entirely understands it, or gets over the gross-out factor. So mothers, don’t expect any purple hearts, trophies, or letters thanking you for keeping the heat at just the right temperature in the womb. Expect dirty diapers and temper tantrums; not thank-you notes and quiet time. However, it is at this stage that the child needs his mother more than ever. Not just for the milk, or the medications, or whatever other responsibilities a mother has to her infant, but more or less for protecting him from fear, and having a ready-made answer to when you make up a story, and your adorable child asks, “for real?” Or the dreaded question, “what is death.” You want to say motherhood, but maybe that would send the wrong idea.

‘

The teenage years are no picnic for your son either. He will take his frustration over girls out on you. He will skip dinner after causing a loud, yelling match about the subjectivity and racial bias of grades with Mom and Dad that may even solicit a concerned call from the neighbors, and yes, he will lock himself in his room. Communication may eventually become impossible for the two of you, and driving said teenager to school facing backwards in the family station wagon will only illicit humiliation and hatred from your “trying to create a persona of cool” high-school son. Here is where it is important for the child to remember what the mother must as well: allow space from your parents, therefore avoiding a fight. Reserve judgment upon Mom and Dad, for they probably have little to do with the girl that rejected you, let alone the LAUSD grading system.

 

As both mother and son become adults, they both now have in common a frightening facet of life; they are both getting older. Baby pictures fade. Memories are just that; vague moments that dissolve with time. Family stories change and are often exaggerated to the point that the actual story remains forgotten. It is as this point in life, no matter the strife the son may be in (credit card debt almost guaranteed in this day and age), and no matter the strife Mom may be in (financial issues, the physical and emotional pains of aging, menopause, dad having to live through the menopause), this is the moment where Mom and Son become not only friends, but partners who can help one another make the right decisions when life throws curveballs, which life throws as much as Roger Clemens after a shot of human growth hormone straight to the right buttock.

 

Mom and son are captains on the same team. Not because they carry on the same last name, or are another branch on the family tree; but because nobody understands one another like these two, and nobody cares about the happenings of one another like a mother and her son, and vice versa. The process of aging, for both mother and son, is comparably easier if they go through it together. Granted, they will be at different stages and they’ll take the frustrations of their remaining years on earth passing them by on one another, but the support they provide may be the difference between success, failure, and most important, a happy life. Though you will fight and it will get ugly, in the end, be it the end of the day, or the end of life’s’ journey, mother and son may be the best friends they got. And Mom’s, don’t forget, Moses was right. You can be wrong from time to time.

 

If I Knew Then

As we get older and the years in which we live start to add up like the price of gas, we all must face an ailment that isn’t physical, yet frustrating enough to create emotional and mental conflict that is extremely difficult to shake. Life is a series of decisions. Should I take this job? Should I pursue this or that career path? Should I have dated that one girl back in college? Or, an even more frustrating question; did I marry the right person? All of these questions boils down to one, important, existential quandary: If I knew then what I know now, would I have made the choices I made on the first go around, and if I did, would my life be different?

 

 

 

If I knew then what I know now, I’d probably be nicer to my parents. There, I said it (mom and dad, if you’re reading). Actually, on second thought, if YOU knew then some of the unfair and unearned blame I received from my mother for messes created by none other than my father (who was always happy to allow me to take the full wrath of mother’s blame), then maybe I would have behaved the same. Either way, unnecessary fights whereas mean, hurtful things are said, or not telling them how much I appreciate them on a daily basis (who does this anyway?), and have not caused them such grief, like every time I threatened to “run away” but only made it to the 7-11 down the street… well, if I knew then, different choices may have been made. But I still won’t take responsibility for my father’s messes and I hope he’s learned the proper ways to clean.

 

 

 

If I knew then what I know now, I think I’d have kept a few of those relationships with girlfriends that turned sour. I would have allowed them to last a little longer, just to see if we could “make it through”. Maybe I would have kissed that girl in junior high who I was “told” liked me but could have easily greeted me with a quick slap across the face (this has happened before). Maybe I would have gone on that spontaneous trip, tried harder to get straight As, and do my best to socially and academically over-achieve. What I know now is those grades may have helped me later in life. Okay, I’m still on the fence on that one.

 

 

 

The truth is, the entire “if I knew then” theory has some serious faults. First of all, if G-d wanted us to know then what the journey of life has taught us now, he’d have given us G-d’s cliff notes on how to live life, rather than those tablets which, frankly, don’t do much for me in regards to money management, career advancement, and scoring with women. My thesis is, “if we all knew then what we know now”, we just might have behaved the same. Would you quit smoking if you knew you’d end up with emphysema? Would you eat more fruits and vegetables to strengthen your health? What you exercise more? Read more books? Vote? Tell your husband you love him even though he doesn’t clean up his messes?

 

 

 

If we knew then what we know now, sure, we may have made some adjustments in how we live. However, we can’t possible know back then what we know now, and therefore we must understand one of the basis tenants of the human condition: our inane ability to make MISTAKES. We must own these mistakes, yet we must do our best not to regret them. If you smoked and now know it can kill you, well, rewinding the clock is not an option. Maybe you’re now too fragile physically to exercise, so what are you going to do? We live life how we live it. We take suggestions, go to therapy, and read self-help books. However, if you know all of this “then”, I would almost bet you’d be fighting with mom and dad with a cigarette dangling from your mouth and a report card full of Cs.

 

 

 

Therefore, the “If I knew then” theory can lead only to one feeling: Regret. Regret is a terrible emotion that can lead to depression, self-anger, and other frustrating “I wish I could turn back the clock” barrage of “what ifs”, but we can’t turn clocks back, and “what if” didn’t happen”. We make mistakes we can fix. Regretting them would be yet another one of these mistakes. We learn from mistakes, grow as people, and as the phrase goes, “we live and learn”. If you are sick or suffering an ailment that may have actually been caused by your own behavior twenty years ago, do not regret it. If you didn’t kiss that girl, or get those straight As, regretting it will do nothing. Use your experiences, the good ones and the bad, as lessons to teach your children and your friends. Because frankly if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t be using the knowledge to improve myself as a person. I simply would have done better in high-school with women.

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Take Cover

I am concerned. Very, very concerned. My therapist calls it anxiety. I have anxiety about the therapist telling me I have anxiety, and I have anxiety about you reading this sentence about anxiety right now. As a young twenty-nine year old, it feels like the world is on my shoulders and my vertebrae could slip at a moment’s notice. With a maniac in Iran supposedly proliferating Nuclear weapons, a maniac in the White House trying to convince us that everything’s A-okay, I can barely sleep through night. Insomnia, says my therapist. Now, when I go to bed, I get anxiety about insomnia. Anyway, we have a war in the Middle East with no end in sight, and course, a supposed cache of weapons of mass destruction that David Blaine couldn’t make appear in some mountain or desert bunker in Iraq. We are in the midst of a recession, which causes me depression (and insomnia and anxiety), and if you haven’t already lost our job, your pink slip is in the mail, right under your foreclosure notice. And be careful on the way to the mailbox. At the continually rapid rate in which our global climate is heating up, it’d be nothing less than a miracle if you make it back to your porch without bursting into flames. We face complicated, conflicting, and incredibly pressing times, and I didn’t think that things could ever get any worse.

 

Then my mother bought a cell phone.

 

Yes, after years of internet shopping and consumer reports research, she found out the truth about who killed Kennedy, and she bought the world’s simplest cell phone ever created, tested on Chimps who were able to send texts to their long lost relatives in Namibia with no problem at all. Then, my mother pressed the POWER button; the world spun on its axis, the earth shook, and so began her voyage into the future. She tried to call me this morning, and instead somehow reached a surprised Jimmy Hoffa before figuring out how to properly dial the area code first. She’s the smartest woman I know, my mother, that is until it comes to the simplest of things, like say, I don’t know, a cell phone. I went through the basics with her, and she looked on through her bi-focals as though she were studying the human genome project. Yet, Darwin had an easier time coming up with that whole “we were once monkeys” theory than my mother has had with this phone. Once we moved past the lesson in pressing the power button to turn it on, we moved into making outgoing calls, which eludes her to this day. Frankly, the chance of achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is far greater than my mother learning how to use this device (at least the leader of Hamas can send a text message if he wants. Apparently he has “Bodyguard” by Whitney Houston as his ringtone). Like I said, tough times, tough times. Just call my mom. She’ll tell you. Once she learns how to accept incoming calls.

 

Now, my father has his own battle of sorts; a battle not nearly as heroic as those soldiers who bravely stormed the beaches in Normandy, or those brave men we sent into Vietnam. He is no Braveheart, Hannibal or Johnny Depp as that weird pirate, No, his fight is a personal one; and one in which he is dreadfully losing.

 

My father bought a Tivo.

 

And so began the great war of 2008: Dad vs. Tivo. TIVO, a plastic box of wires and circuitry in one corner, and in the other corner my father, an incredibly educated, successful doctor who’s a born genius when it comes to easier things like say, I don’t know, reconnecting heart valves and oh yeah SAVING LIVES. But when it comes to Tivo, this “recommended for ages twelve-and-under” machine has slapped him around like an angry pimp asking for his cut from last Saturday night. In fact, his inability to program, communicate with, and make peace with his TIVO is so severe that he now just watches whatever the machine tells him to. Speaking of which, he strongly feels that last years’ winner of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL was an outrage.

 

The point is, we live in a society that is globalizing faster than we can adapt. Technology is advancing at a rate whereas we humans ourselves have nearly become obsolete, our eyes no longer able to make out anything that is not in High Definition.

 

So, aging vs. new technology. Understanding how to operate our new and understandably complicated machinery that runs are lives. The cable man is tired of staying the night at my parents, and my father hates Tori Spelling’s new show (but of course, can’t change the channel without turning on the fireplace and starting the car.

 

So what do we do?

Your kids will whine like a dying cat if you ask them the simplest question. Your coworkers frankly don’t want to hear it, lest they be taken away from surfing the internet. If you type your question into Yahoo or Google, you’ll get a million answers on what to do, and then three weeks later a years’ supply of Viagra shows up in the mail.

 

So again, what do we do?

 

Fortunately for parents and children alike, an inspiring new company, LiveOn, has come up with a way to aid and assist consumers like your mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., in this massive transformation from pen and notepad to computers that run nearly every aspect of our lives. LiveOn is an online, virtual assistance living portal that can offer support and solutions in a multitude of fields, for ma multitude of problems. If I could figure out another sentence to use the word multitude in right now, I would. Liveon is freedom. Freedom for mom and dad to learn how to use their products themselves, or get consumer advice, or even medical products they’ve been meaning to purchase but can’t seem to remember the name of the store the doctor told them to go to. With the ability to buy products, read reviews, read and write blogs and articles both amusing and informative, there is finally a home for baby-boomers in cyberspace. Its liveonnetwork.com. The easy-to-use, self-explanatory site answers questions about what to do regarding certain ailments that may affect a person; how to properly set up their house so it is safe and secure; how to set up your TiVo, your telephone, your microwave. There will even be the first ever baby boom social networking site, so users can reconnect with long lost family or friends. And most importantly, the site’s goal is to make the aging process a more pleasant, stress-free experience for the people we love and owe so much to. Products can be purchased that assist specific symptoms such as night-sweating, or customized bedding, or automated pill dispensers. Advice will be given via an online doctor. Links to doctors, health care providers, and hospitals are also on the site. In fact, there will even be an assortment of blogs, online discussions, and articles that may help offer solutions to the very struggle you and your family may go to. Check out www.LiveOnNetwork.com for all your “how am I going to deal with my mom and dad” needs”. Also, if you’ve successfully taught your mother how to use her cell phone and she’s got the hang of it, don’t be ambitious and move her on to email. My mom called the exterminator last time I told her to navigate using the mouse.

 

Because of companies like www.liveonnetwork.com, I am hopeful for the future. Sure, we may be stuck in a recession, bogged down in a war with no exit plan, and have to sell our houses for less than the welcome mat we bought for the front door, but the more we make the last phase of life, aging, easier for our family members we cherish so deeply, the easier things can be for us. Be selfish, and let liveonnetwork.com provide you with simple solutions for our understandably complicated, futuristic lives. As for now, I’m off to spend some quality time with my father. Apparently there is a marathon of THE HILLS on MTV that I absolutely cannot miss.

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Stop, Or My Mother Will Nag!

Since the beginning of time, there has been conflict and war, and so it will be until the end of time. The only thing that changes is the weaponry. We were once angry cavemen throwing rocks and hand-crafted spears at one another, until we stepped up and created the fierce and deadly bow and arrow, flinging it at each other’s heads with poison on the tips. Then, some curious warrior came across a substance known as gunpowder, and the art of war was forever changed. Now, we find ourselves living in a world of terrorism; a world of pre-emptive attacks; a world where mind-numbing battles seem to be taking place in nearly every crevice of the world. Fortunately, I have discovered a weapon that, if used correctly, has the potential to destroy mankind quicker than carbon emissions.

Sure, there are rocks, and spears, and bows, and arrows, and bullets, and cluster bombs, and the splitting of atoms; yet, none of these horrifying weapons of war even come close to the damage we can inflict upon one another simply by “nagging”. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but nagging will bring me to my knees, and within minutes I will find myself shivering in emotional turmoil, collapsed on the therapist’s couch.

 

Webster’s dictionary defines the word nagging as follows: continually faultfinding, complaining, or petulant: If the definition of the word still remains unclear, it goes on to list a fantastic example of how to use the word in a sentence: a nagging parent.

 

Was there any other example they could have gone with that suitably explains what “to nag” really means? A nagging girlfriend, maybe? A nagging wife? Of course, Webster’s could have gone with my nagging kids, yet, interestingly enough, to properly convey the complexity and overall power of the word, Webster’s went with “a nagging parent”, and I firmly believe that they made the right decision. I can almost picture the brainy wordsmiths sitting around a table at Webster’s International Headquarters, debating the best example of how to use the word nagging in a sentence when, all of a sudden, their cell phones went off in unison. I can picture them gazing down with trepidation at their vibrating blackberry’s, only to see those two frightening words flashing across the screen in pixels …Mom calling. …Mom calling. …Mom calling. Why, whatever could she want this time? “Don’t forget to pay your bills.” “Are you going to come to your nephew’s birthday party four months from now, because I need to know?” “Did you RSVP to that wedding, because it’s very rude if you didn’t, and you don’t have to go but Dad and I are going, so…?” “Oh, and you left a glass of water out on the kitchen table, and your clothes in the washing machine, and…” if you’re still reading, then surely you get the idea. Witness the awe-inspiring power of… the nagging parent.

 

It took me until the ripe old age of thirty years to entirely understand the complexities of “the nagging parent.” Now, coming to this understanding at the age of thirty either illustrates my newfound maturity and profound ability to deal with “the nagging parent”, or, it simply shows my stunted growth from the years of 1 through 29. Either way, after trial and error, after years of torment and the therapy that follows, after endless phone calls with my friends that began with “I’m going to kill her”, I have come to a rather comforting conclusion. See, it isn’t about the “nag” itself, because certainly a little thing like a “nag” can be brushed off, ignored, or simply dismissed off-hand. No, I now understand that the “nag” is a symptom of a larger, more troubling theme: it’s about control. It’s about being a parent, no matter how old a child may get. Children inevitably devolve into these immobile appendages that burn through your finances, destroy your ability relax, and entirely eliminate the option of a good nights’ sleep. Therefore, in return, Mom and Dad have earned the right to occasionally “nag”, or so goes their theory. I am simply arguing that the “nag” is so powerful a tool, with its ability to crawl up into the subconscious and live somewhere deep inside the human brain, that it should be used only on the worst of enemies, and should no longer be reserved for the torment of loved ones.

 

After dinner last night, my mother decided to walk me around the house so that she could point out the glass I left on the coffee table, the clothes I left unfolded in the washing machine, the tea bag still in the sifter, the trash not properly disposed of, the uneaten food left in wrapped up paper-towels by the computer, and somehow my father miraculously escaped any accusations that any or all of these messes could have been created by him. So, I stopped and I took a long, deep breath; a major departure from my usual behavior of hopping in my car and driving back to my own house, stopping only at the nearest liquor store with my therapist on speed dial. This time, however, I realized that the “nagging”, the rapid-fire repetition of the rules of the house, the endless parenting, that this is all my mother and father have left as they watch me grow into a responsible human being, capable of free-will and the occasional rational thought, no longer in need of parental guidance. And I imagine that there is nothing like watching your children grow old, get married, and move to a new, far-away state, to remind you that you are also aging, and you’re the one with the head start. Therefore, “nagging” has become a psychological sport to Mom and Dad, a verbal volley of “do this don’t do that”, an Olympic competition for which they shall receive nothing less than the gold.

 

If “nagging” is one of civilization’s most feared weapons, the atom-bomb in the war between parent and child, than what is the best defense? Certainly driving home and not answering mom or dad’s calls will only leave one sleepless and guilt-ridden. Taking it out on a friend will leave one entirely alone, and yapping about it while on a date will make one sound totally infantile. Therefore, the only way to fight the “nag” is with a strong, swift “I’m not a child anymore!” Yeah, fire that baby right back at them and see how they respond. Sure, maybe I did leave the toilet seat up, Mom, and I truly am sorry that you fell in. And no, I did not rsvp to that wedding and as far as my nephew’s birthday, let’s cross that bridge four months from now, but hear me loud and clear once and for all: I am NOT a child anymore. I am a grown adult. Yeah. A grown, responsible adult, and you think I can I borrow a quick fifty bucks?

 

Anyway, the point is, resistance (or le resistance, in French), seems to be the only suitable defense in the wake of a “nagging” attack. As a child gets older, Mom and Dad will use the “nag” as the last torn thread of attachment, and/or ownership they have over the child. The constant need to parent, to teach, to impose rules, no matter how Stalinist this all may be, is simply an extension of Mom and Dad’s love. And though it may technically be considered an act of torture as far as the Geneva Convention is concerned, Mom and Dad will use the weapon of “nagging” time and time again, until your nothing but a shell of your former self, out fifty bucks.

 

The bottom line is, never underestimate the power of a mother’s nag. See, nobody knows how long we will stay in Iraq. And yes, finding Bin Laden may take a miracle. But we ought to re-evaluate the weapons we use, for maybe it’s time to introduce a mother’s “nag” into the theater of warfare. One “Osama, is that your dirty dish in the sink” and he’ll turn himself in at the nearest army despot. One “Zarqawi, I hope you don’t think you’re going to wear that ratty T-shirt and flip-flops to dinner”, and he’d have blown himself up. In fact, I wonder if Saddam Hussein turned up in that tiny spider hole out there in the desert because he was hiding from the powerful and almighty United States war machine, or was he simply trying to get away from his own nagging mother?

 
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Restless Med Syndrome

I just finished watching television, and after a series of commercials advertising the hundreds of millions of medications out there for us to buy, and the hundred of millions of conditions us human beings may be suffering from, I don’t know if I should head over to the CVS pharmacy, mortgage my house, and buy everything from aisles 3 to 10, or simply just commit suicide. Furthermore, these commercials are filled with such jolly cartoon characters, or the deep voices of some of my favorite actors (damn you James Earl Jones, I am not going through depression), I’m about as sold on Mucinex as I am on a pair of NIKES advertised to me during the NBA playoffs. The one thing these commercials are successful in having me believe is that I am in fact, dying.

 

There are many different ways to look at life. Rabbis and Priests and Imams and Tom Cruise all have advice on how to look at life. Me, I am a pessimist, and/or Jewish. My belief is that, ever since the day we are all born, we are on the path to dying, or have begun to die. For some, death may be a slow process, and this person shall live a nice, long, healthy one-hundred years or so. Others are not so fortunate. However, the one thing I have vowed not to do is live my life as though I am dying, even though science and my diminishing brain cells tell me otherwise. In simple terms, I want to live as though I am living.

 

Let me first say that I believe the advancements in medical science have produced life-saving and/or life-altering medications that have enhanced the lives of most, if not all of us, and we should continue to fund scientific research and studies in the field of medical science. If prescribed by your doctor and taken appropriately, many of us have found various medications to help us get through the day, overcome ailments, and possibly eradicate a disease one may be suffering from. However, when economics become interwoven with health and wellness, my legs become, well, extremely restless.

 

Let’s stop and think about Restless Leg Syndrome. Does such a syndrome even exist? Does it exist if a little yellow cartoon character on TV tells me so? Is it a serious condition if I put Restless Leg Syndrome in all caps? And, if it is a real syndrome, can it not simply be cured by say, I don’t know, getting off the damn couch and taking a, ready for this… walk? It is a fact that the pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion dollar economic system in the United States, and the lobbyists that come with it are some of the most powerful in our country, second to maybe the one thing we are terribly addicted to: oil. Now, I am no expert in economics, but I am certain the pharmaceutical companies would like us to also be addicted to their pharmaceuticals. If we could Lexipro or Viagra in our cars instead of oil, than all the better. And this is where a major problem in our society lies. Where is the line between the medications we need, and the medications we are being sold on and really can live without, that only serve to enable Pfizer and Merck to line their pockets? We need to figure this out, lest I get stressed and need another prescription for Xanax.

 

Just turn on the TV, or check your spam folder in your email inbox, or flip through any magazine on the newsstand, and you will be told through various advertisements that you not only are “suffering” from restless leg syndrome, but a variety of allergies, toe-nail fungus, depression, repression, obsession, A.D.D., A.D. H.D., overactive bladder, irritable bowel syndrome, inflamed prostate, and erectile dysfunction, just to name a few. My questions, and maybe yours as well, are as follows: Which conditions are real and need to be treated with medication? Which conditions are real and do not require medication, but can be cured by leaving your house, exercising, walking in the park, or getting a girlfriend (erectile dysfunction, or are you just single)? Finally, which conditions are literally created by clever marketing executives at the pharmaceutical companies, and do not actually exist, but are designed not only to make us believe that a) they are indeed real and possibly life threatening, b) it is likely that you are suffering from it right now, as you read this article, and c) we should be funneling down a variety of expensive pills to treat said symptom(s)? These questions are great cause for concern, both for our pocketbooks as well as our livers. However, I will agree with the pharmaceutical companies on one thing: when I am on a date at a nice Italian Restaurant, and I suddenly am overcome with a terrible case of irritable bowel syndrome, this is usually followed by an equally terrible case of erectile dysfunction as well. But the reality is, this is usually because my date asks to be dropped off early, and a potential romantic rendezvous is awkwardly cut short. Yet, once I am home and have relieved myself, all systems are a go, and I feel healthy, youthful, and completely alone with nothing but fourteen bottles of pills and a Mucinex commercial telling me not to blow my nose, but to take a pill that will eradicate the mucus all together. If only there was a pill for a second date.

 

If you have chosen to believe, consciously or subconsciously, in any or all of the conditions we hear about in commercials or read about in magazine advertisements, and therefore you medicate yourself accordingly, I truly hope that you catch the thirty seconds or so of potential side effects at the end of these commercials. “This medication may cause dry mouth, soreness, diarrhea, irritability, insomnia, and possibly death”. Are you kidding me? So now, if I take the medication advertised, I will likely experience the side effects, and would probably have rather just suffered from the initial condition to begin with. If I take the medication and suffer the side effects, do I then have to take a variety of other medications to treat the side effects? I know one thing for sure. The big pharmaceutical companies are hoping for the latter.  I simply want that second date, thank you IBS.

 

My final question is, why am I the one being advertised to in regards to medication in the first place? I am simply a guy trying to watch my favorite reality show when a commercial kicks in asking me how many times I run to the bathroom and how many hours of sleep I get (questions which incidentally cause me anxiety, another condition I am being treated for with a series of medications). I mean, am I the most qualified to decide if my legs are restless, my bowel irritable, or my erection dysfunctional (okay, maybe that last one I am the most qualified). But isn’t this why I go to my doctor? It makes little sense to me as to why the pharmaceutical companies skip the doctor and advertise directly to the consumer as though I have completed medical school, an externship, residency at Cedar Sinai Hospital, and have been practicing medicine for years. Hell, I’m not even a production assistant on Grey’s Anatomy, though I do know where to score Marijuana, which, incidentally, has little side effects except for paranoia and hours of TV watching, and again, likely no date.

 

In conclusion, thinking about all of this has reminded me yet again what I already know: we are all dying. However, why can’t Pfizer and Watson and Merck just let me live? I urge everyone to think twice and consult your doctor before taking anything, because side effects lead to more medication, which leads to more side effects and therefore more medication, and so on and so forth, like the snake eating its tail. You know what, thinking about all of this has given me a headache. I will have to end this now, take a couple Tylenol, drop a Mucinex to stop the sniffles, and pop a Viagra just in case I am able to score that second date.

 
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It’s Too Violent

 

So I am at my parent’s house watching the fifth hour of a DATELINE NBC marathon. After shaking the image of Stone Phillips ranting in depth about murders of young girls on tropical islands, identity theft (dad’s worst fear), global war, and climate change, I was ready to make some phone calls, and get my Saturday night started. I checked my text messages, and either God was watching the same Dateline NBC marathon and decided to respond by proving he could still pull off the occasional miracle, or he was simply too drunk to make a rationale decision, like when he got George W. Bush elected for a second term after an all-night bender, amazingly, my date for the night had official agreed to meet me for dinner. I showered. I shaved. I put on my best outfit. And I was ready.

 

Then Mom, having awoken from an Ambien-induced sleep, politely informed me that I looked like a sixteen year-old outfitted by the Salvation Army of Sherman Oaks. So, with my confidence shattered, I showered. And I shaved. And I changed into what my mom considered my best outfit, and which most people would agree, if it were still 1982. Point is, I was ready. I got in my car, and as I pulled away, my father warned me about the prevalence of drunk drivers out “these days”. These “orange alert” warnings from pop are old hat, and didn’t shake my anxiety anymore than it already was. Then, clad in a decade-old nightgown, clinging to her like a second skin, my mother waddled out with a sense of urgency, and, empowered by a Lipitor high, in one sentence, my dear mother sent my night into a downward spiral; one from which I would never recover.

 

“You really should see your grandmother more.” And that was all she had to say. I started the car, and blasted gangster rap, hoping to shake off the guilt trip and regain my self-proclaimed street-cred, you know, that cool edge that hides the fact that my mother runs my life, before picking up my beautiful, long-legged, blonde date. “You should really see your grandma more.” You know what? Maybe this is true. However, the last time I visited my sweet, old  grandmother, she told me I looked fantastic, which was sweet. She also told me how strong a person I am, having beat polio. Polio? Assuming that was just a brain-slip, I thanked her again, assuring her it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t until after she told me I’ve got to figure out a way to end this war with those Nazi bastards and tell that sonofoabitch Churchill that I’m the boss, that I realized she had mistaken me, once again, for one of our greatest Presidents, Franklin Roosevelt. I do need to see my grandmother more. I’m just more of a Harry Truman kind of guy.

 

Suffice it to say, the date went well, and it didn’t take more than four glasses of Pinot Noir to shake off the tidal-wave of guilt my mother sent me off with. However, after our Caesar salads, my lovely, intelligent date slipped away to the ladies room, and it was then that I felt a strange, vibrating sensation running down my leg. Sure, the woman had great legs that didn’t end, and I’ll admit, it’s been awhile, but I knew this feeling far too well. I took my blackberry out of my pocket, and sure enough, there it was. Mom was calling. Either the world was coming to an end and she wanted to break the news first, or she misplaced the remote, which most likely my father was sitting on. My date returned, looking refreshed and, oddly, a couple of pounds lighter. Instantly, she could see the horror in my face, as if someone died. Something did. It’s called my sex life. “What’s the matter?” “I really should see m grandmother more often”, I responded. “Oh, okay.”

 

The vibrating continued, and I politely slipped outside to take the call. This was not considered rude by my caring date, considering , the entire reason she accepted my invitation if the first place was because of my above average scores on the MCATS, and  my acceptance as chief orthopedic surgeon the world-renowned Cedar Sinai Medical Center. You’d think my parents would be proud. They would be, if I didn’t really work at blockbuster. Anyway, I was somehow able to make out the screams of my parents through the cell. I read somewhere that T-Mobile has been running several tests with the help of the world’s most renowned scientists, yet still, nada —  no proof that yelling as loud as humanly possible into a cell-phone improves the quality of the connection.

 

Apparently, mom and dad are spending the night in, and would like to know my opinion on which film to watch on demand. If only murder was on demand, I’d tell them to point, click, and purchase. “The Die Hard movies are always entertaining.” No, too violent. “Oliver Stone’s JFK. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s free on cable.” No, they were there when it happened. Well, in spirit at least, considering the assassination of JFK didn’t happen on Ventura Blvd. near the shopping center in Encino. “Fine, how about There’s Something About Mary?” Dad saw it. Or he thinks he saw it. I politely point out that if he can’t remember whether he saw it or not, isn’t it like watching it the first time, anyway? They tell me they don’t appreciate my tone. I look inside the restaurant and see the blonde, this dream of a woman halfway finished with Pinot Grigio number two, and I tell mom and dad Good-bye. They tell me the same, and my ear-drum cracks, providing me with an irritating buzzing sound inside my head, there for the remainder of the night.

 

Back at the table, we enjoyed desert, witty conversation, and an educated, if not somewhat malicious debate over Obama versus McCain. It was on her fourth trip to the bathroom that I put Halliburton and the War on Terror together. One plus one equals two, and tax cuts for the rich plus water-boarding as a summer sport equals a (echo) Republican. The fact that my lovely, if not misguided date was blonde was one thing (not even a real blonde, but apparently, according to my mother, “blonde is blonde, no matter if it’s from a bottle or a goy mother who’s never heard of safe sex ”). But a Republican? No way could I bring this woman home to meet the parents. My mother would shoot her dead before she even made it up the driveway, claiming her 2^nd amendment right to self-defense, yet I imagine she’d have a harder time explaining why she impaled the body with a “Change We Can Believe In” campaign sign.

 

As I drove my date home to her high-rise apartment while blasting Rush Limbaugh at her request, you know, to set the mood, my leg continued to vibrate. My phone continued to ring. And I realized, I have a dream. Actually, I have two dreams. One involves this Republican blonde naked in my bed, shouting “trickle down economics doesn’t work”, over and over until we both fell asleep watching Chris Matthews. The other dream is a simple one. What if there was a site, an easy-to-use web page, where mom and dad can click away, searching for movie recommendations from others in their age group. Reading opinions from their peers, as to the levels of violence, sexuality, and overall ratings as to what to watch, and why. Furthermore, maybe this site could go as far as to give mom and dad a step-by-step guide as to how to play said movie once the choice, as difficult and dramatic as it is (Abraham had an easier time preparing to slaughter his son), is made. A site where mom and dad can go to get all of their answers answered, and allow me to get on with my life. My exciting, young life. My just, yeah, fantastic, exciting, unpredictable young –

 

Okay, in the interest of full-disclosure, the whole part about me having a date with a beautiful, slender-legged blonde? Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The date was dream number three, which I neglected to mention. The truth? It was just another Saturday night, like so many before them. Mom, Dad, and I thoroughly enjoyed Die Hard 3, though my mom fell asleep after the opening credits, and my dad thought it was the best foreign language film he’d ever seen, considering he couldn’t hear a word. And just at the climax of the film, you know, where John McClane, through a series of miraculous stunts and ingenious, tough-guy ploys, saves the world, even though thousands perish in the process, my mother woke up, and uttered three simple words. “It’s too violent.”  

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TEMPATURE RISING-From Global Warming to My Mother’s Body Temperature

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of blue ice-packs, I realize that buried deep somewhere beneath the lavender-scented, frozen bags lies a woman slightly resembling  my mother, or the lovely woman I once recognized as mine. Currently experiencing a migraine headache caused by a result of a rush of hormones that shift faster and less predictability then the sharp turns of a New York cab driver, Mom is going through global warming firsthand. For my mother, Climate Change is not just a myth, as many right wing politicians have tried and failed to assure us. Fortunately, Al Gore’s Academy Award winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” all but did away with any doubt that the globe is eating, and sooner or later we will be riding around space on a planet aflame. Yet, while I am sure my other is concerned about the rise of ocean temperatures throughout the world, she is far more busy dealing with an “inconvenient truth” of her own; “an inconvenient truth” about a phase of life where women would prefer water-boarding over ten years of endless, consistent night sweats, and the mental and emotional trauma that my father suffers as a result. This terribly inconvenient truth that anyone who steps within ten feet of my mother during a preemptive hormone strike or after a bout of excessive insomnia will face, is a frightening, dangerous, and downright torturous condition known as menopause.

 

My poor mothers’ body temperature rises and falls like gas prices. At this point, the thermostat is practically shaped for her hands and fingers, the dial constantly shifting between sixty and eighty degrees. There have been times when my father waited for her to fall asleep, so that he could sneak out and adjust the thermostat to a temperature suitable for humans, only to turn around and see my mother, half-asleep and furious, her nightgown blowing under the air-conditioning vent creating the image of a very angry, incredibly upset ghost. My mother’s own, personal climate change has nothing to do with clear-cutting, or the release of carbons, or the decline of the Ozone Layer. It has to do with good old-fashioned hormones. Apparently, when a woman turns forty, these hormones decide to get drunk and dance around inside of a woman’s body like Mick Jagger soaring across a concert stage. Again, fluctuating body temperature, irritability, moodiness, IRRITABILTY; my mother is going through what the great scientists of our time have defined as menopause. Me, I’m no great scientist. Nor am I some inspired theologian. Call it menopause if you’d like. Call it aging. Blame it on global warming if you want. Yet, as far as I’m concerned, there is only one word that justifiably wraps up the experience my mother and her poor, supportive family has been going through during the last decade. The word, in short, is hell.

 

From crankiness to irritation to random aches and pains and fluctuations in body temperature and irritable bowel symptom and loss of appetite and extreme gain of appetite and nausea being just a few of the symptoms of menopause, I can’t imagine what my poor mother must be going through. However, for me, her loving son (so long as she never reads this article), the mother I loved and cherished quickly evolved into a fire-breathing monster, the angry villain in a superhero comic book, simply if she can’t find her TIVO remote (which usually is under a cushion right next to her, yet still my father’s fault). They say there’s a troop shortage due to our extended stay in Iraq. Again, neither a foreign policy hack, nor does my military expertise extends beyond watching SAVING PRIVATE RYAN nearly a thousand times, but I have a solution to this shortage. Catch my mom and her equally menopausal friends (imagine those gatherings) on an off day, and she’ll serve up Bin Laden who will be begging for the death penalty. Be it a loss of appetite and therefore a drop in her blood sugar level; or be it my kind dad saying the wrong thing, like “good morning, you looked lovely”;, or be it me, her loving, caring son not putting a coffee mug away, or leaving a plate of food out that I am still eating, well, even Will Smith on a 4^th of July couldn’t save the world from my mothers’ preemptive menopausal strikes.

 

However, my perspective is beginning to change. I am writing this article for men, husbands, and sons, even adopted ones begging to go back to poverty-stricken, war-torn Africa rather than suffer through their new mothers’ menopause years, as both a warning of things to come, and a survival guide as to how to make it through these tortuous years. I mean, yeah, my new perspective is all about making her feel better. Yeah.

 

Start with the word. Menopause. Break it down. Men. Oh. Pause. I think who ever defined It was trying to tell us something (hell, I bet there is a hidden message in a Da Vinci painting giving us clues how to make it through, and going even further, maybe Van Gogh yanked off his hear so as to not have to hear the complaining anymore), but my new theory, or point of view, is this: Men of the world, pause. Just for a moment. Just to regroup and decide how to best battle the demons unleashed from the woman you love during these fiery ten years.  The first step is to identify that your mother, wife, sister, of girlfriend is really is going through menopause, and isn’t simply a terrible woman. Hell, I’ve had a date cancelled because or a girl telling me her menopause was “acting up”. She was twenty. If your mother is the sweetest, kindest, and most caring woman in the world who, over the past ten years has transformed from the heroic Beowulf to the evil, frightening Grendel, you must pause and take heed. She is, most definitely, suffering from the M word. In this case, the following are a few tips:

 

1. Stay the hell out of her way. I mean it. Move! A simple shoulder bump in the hallway can unleash an unexpected, emotionally bruising breakdown on how you dress like crap, oughta get a better job, and for chrissakes, meet a nice Jewish girl and settle down already. All from a simple shoulder bump. Think about it.

 

1. Fall asleep, stay asleep, and under no circumstances, shall you awaken in the middle of the night and go out to the living room to watch a little TV. If the woman has menopause, she will likely be suffering from insomnia as well. Unless you want to find yourself watching the ladies of “The View” yakking away, or worse, some late night, sexually graphic cable movie that came on after said mother or wife or sister finally conked out on the couch,, under no circumstances, shall you awaken in the middle of the night.

 

1. When commenting on how she looks, there is only one answer. Wonderful. Ignore the dark circles under her eyes. Don’t stare at her wildly un-kempt bed-head hair for longer than a second, and unless you want to get beheaded, tell her it’s okay that she has been wearing the same tattered nightgown now every single night for a good month and it is stained with tomato sauce from last weeks lasagna. You know what? Doesn’t matter.  She looks wonderful, or so you tell her, and your head stays firmly fastened to your neck.

 

1. Finally, and maybe most important, try to understand. Now, if you’re a man reading this, than you share my frustration when the words “women” and “understand” fall into the same sentence, which is why I specified “try to”. However, menopause is a truly brutal phase that all women go through, which serves as a cruel, physical reminder that she is getting older, and that with aging comes new conditions, abnormalities, overall unease, with only one guaranteed finish line. Try to understand. Try to stay the hell out of her way. Try to stay asleep, and tell her she looks wonderful. Do all this, and maybe the blow of menopause can be lessened for us. I mean, right. For her.

 

In conclusion, Climate Change is happening at a rapid rate. Whether your concern is for the survival of our planet or the physical comfort of your ice-pack covered mother or wife, take a pause, and just think how lucky we men are, not to have to go through periods, and child births, and menopause. Try not to think how unlucky we are for often being the unwilling victims of it. They should give out medals for those of us who survive. And, you know, yeah. For her, of course. For her too. God speed.

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