The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

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You and Your Dangling Participle

This may or may not be common knowledge … but there is an age that men reach where, when/if they go to a gym locker room … they will be naked as much as possible.

You may have a few questions, let me take a guess at them and answer those.

What Age?
I don’t know. Is it the exact same moment in time for every man? 62 years, 204 days, 3 hours? Is it variable based on your life experiences? Is it related to race, religion, favorite foods? Who knows. But it happens to every man.

Sad fact: one day, I, too, will wander the men’s locker room, towel cavalierly draped over a shoulder, walking like a toddler letting my gut lead the way while my Jimmy Dean is out on display.

But … Why?
Exactly. EXACTLY. It’s not like a, ‘oh I left my towel over there, let me go back and grab it and wrap it around the waist like normal people do.’ No. It is deliberate. The towel is handy, but it’s being used to cover a guy’s elbow, perhaps a kneecap, but that’s it. Minimal coverage is the goal here. But the towel is always handy, letting you know, ‘this ain’t no accident, chief.’

And suddenly the world has slowed to a crawl for these fellas, too. You just showered, you know what you need to do? Make like Auguste Rodin and sit and think. But, unlike The Thinker, think with your legs open. You’ve got to let your New England Man Chowder breathe.

(Gross nickname, right? I’m proud of that one.)

Are They Naked Like That Other Places?
Thankfully, I have no idea. I haven’t notice this extend to public places. And I’m not seeing these guys streaking at baseball games or anything (that wouldn’t be in their nature – streaking usually involves running, and these guys like to look upon the snail as their inspiration in life).

What Can I Do To Prevent This?
If you’re a male, nothing. If you’re a male who is younger and going to gyms, I suggest you work out in glasses. Then, when you go to shower and get dressed you just don’t wear your glasses. Super blind? Super news. Mildly blind? Sorry, you’ve got legless lizards in your future.

If you have perfect eyesight, you deserve this. Jerk.

***

If you didn’t know this about men and locker rooms. I’m sorry you bear the weight of this knowledge now. I’d suggest eating to forget the pain, but I wouldn’t recommend hot dogs.

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Somewhere near this is a naked old man.

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The Little Bus, With the Little Passenger

If you are a frequent visitor to my blog then you are aware that my wife and I have a kiddo, and he was born about 7 weeks early. This has led to my wife and I being quite interested in all things preterm (we’re part of a select club you know).

Recently, an article in the journal Science talked about some findings … given that I’m not brainy or enthused enough to read every Science journal (a more ambitious and time-well-utilized version of myself would) … I read a dumbed down article about it from the New York Times.

It ended with this paragraph,

It is almost as though the molecular message being sent by RNA “is a little bus that travels back and forth and is letting Mom know what’s going on,” Dr. Cheng said.  “I bet you they’re going to find that the mother’s going to respond. There’s a conversation going on. That’s what’s cool.”

(RNA is what is looked at by this blood test.)

***

Hi, I’m Gary. I drive the bus that a mother and fetus use to talk to each other and it’s amazing and incredible and whatever, but guys. It is also disgusting.

You know how pregnant women have their ‘water.’ And when it’s go time the water breaks and oh a miracle and blah blah?

You know that water is partially baby urine, right? And that sick baby is drinking that urine?

Do you know what it’s like communicating with a urine drinker? I’LL TELL YOU! IT’S GROSS. Their breath is just … weird. And they have this distinct, ‘as soon as this conversation is over … I’m gonna drink more urine’ look on their faces. It’s weird.

And those little guys are INTENSE. Their hearts beat like … I don’t know, 160 beats per minute? Imagine the tiniest person you know on crack, drinking urine. That’s a baby. ‘Hey look man, I just discovered this, check it out!’ Then the baby goes and like strangles itself with the umbilical cord for a while, all the while staring right at me. Blech. It’s terrifying.

And you know who I haven’t even mentioned yet? The mother. My God the mother. ‘Oh I’m a dad and my wife is more emotional these days and wah wah wah.’ OH YEAH, PAL!? TRY DRIVING A BUS INSIDE SOMEONE WHOSE HORMONES LIKE JUST TOOK LSD AND HEADED TO THE TOWN CARNIVAL.

Seriously. It’s like, you show up and say, ‘hey, baby says maybe 7 weeks to go and it’s digging all the kale you’ve been eating lately, but also it wants you to eat ice cream out of a plastic bag.’ And the mom is like, ‘my little darling angel’ all cooing with love and then the mom thinks about all the plastic garbage floating in the ocean and she starts crying and then the mom thinks about how salty her tears are and wants McDonald’s fries and then she’s SO, SO ANGRY AND I DON’T KNOW WHY.

So you get the message from the mom which is … you know, mixed, and you take it back to old urine mouth.

It’s just.

I don’t know man.

I wish one of the white blood cells would hang out with me sometime, those guys are cool.

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Farewell, Sneakers

One day in college I sat down at a dining table where a friend was already sitting. He had a spoon and a yogurt in front of him. My friend, as far as I know, was not high. But he looked at the spoon and said, “Made in China. This spoon was made in China. This spoon has done more traveling than I have.”

Today I say farewell to my traveling pals, and shoes that I otherwise wore out all the time. They’ve been to India, Colombia, Peru and work (work more so than the others).

In their old age they had adapted a few friendly practices. For example, ‘smell holes.’ These were holes in the bottom of the shoes to let out any sweaty feet smells … they had the unintended consequence of making this shoes miserable if you wore them on a rainy day. But hey, nevertheless, great innovative idea shoes and I applaud your self-initiative in opening up those holes without first checking with me.

Another thing that one of the shoes was testing (I assume it was a test to prove the worthiness of this idea before the other shoe adopted it) – ‘efficiency optimizer.’ This was where one of the shoes was slowly starting to come apart at the seams, encouraging me to pick the most efficient route whenever I wore them. Good thinking, shoe!

Goodbye old friends.

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