PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS II

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (06-13-24)

 
     Madeira is an autonomous Portuguese Island famous for its fortified sweet wine, and a short flight from Lisbon. We strolled to the waterfront area of Funchal, stopping for ice cream along the way, which I was able to convince my wife was an ancient fishing custom. In the evening we ventured out into the Atlantic with 5 or 6 other couples on a sailboat sunset cruise, where we met a pod of dolphins with the same idea. We stopped for a dip in the ocean, which even in May is not bad once you get used to it. I figured I would be used to it by August. The sunset that followed was made even more gorgeous with the flattering effects caused by a potent concoction made readily available on the trip.

     We were up before the crack of dawn the next day to see the sunrise, and the crack of dawn has never been so lovely as it was from where we saw it. We were shuttled by van to the summit of Pico do Areeiro, the second-highest mountain on the island, above the cloud that is forever parked around it. The sun rising from beneath the clouds is an other-worldy experience. While I was there I checked around for my data, which I'm told is somewhere in the cloud. 

     We had signed up for an e-bike tour along the North Coast of the island the next morning. What's impossible to know from a brochure description is that the topography of Madeira has its ups and downs. Mostly ups. The extreme hills of the north make it a pretty but pretty challenging ride, even with a motor-assisted bicycle. Once our motor became angry that we were not assisting it more, we cut our ride short to get some coffee at the local cafe and head back to the scenic overlook to meet up with the others on their return.

     The next day we flew to the island of Sao Miguel. I can now say that I've been to the Azores, but we were really just on this one Azore. Sao Miguel is a lush island, rich with friendly people and beautiful trees and flowers, none of which are original equipment. When the volcanic island was settled in the early 15th century, it was essentially uninhabited and bereft of anything but a subtropical forest of laurel-related shrubs. The beautiful flowering plants you see today were all brought to the island, notably the colorful hydrangeas, whose fast-growing root structures were important in containing erosion as it became more populated. 

     We stayed in the city of Ponto Delgada, which is completely tiled, both streets and sidewalks, with an artistry unknown in America. If my bathroom was in the streets of the city it would be re-tiled by now.

     As we relaxed by the hotel pool we were spoiled by the sunny weather, which comes and goes in the Azores. The next day we embarked on an all day tour in the misty rain that took us to various important locations around Sao Miguel. Our first stop was the Gorreana tea plantation, the oldest in Europe and the only one left on the island from the historic era of tea as one of its major exports. Some of the drying and sorting equipment from the old days is still used today. Which makes me feel pretty good, as I myself am one of the things at my job from the old days of the television industry that is still being used today.

     After stopping at a scenic point overlooking the caldera of Furnas valley, we traveled to the fumaroles, where the Earth blows out plumes of steam as if breathing on a cold day. The bubbling natural cauldrons provide a unique way to cook a lunch. Buried into the ground in a large pot, the traditional meal of Cozido das Furnas is a gigantic stew containing just about every meat and vegetable that could be corralled in a 20-mile radius. It is a hearty repast, but could cause vegetarians to faint. 

     The highlight of the tour was a dip in the ferrous pool at the lush Terra Nostra Park, a botanical garden brimming with horticultural and arboreal wonders, founded in 1780 by the American Consul to the Azores. The pool is man-made, spring-fed, 108 degrees and completely orange, due to the high iron content of the water. Bathing in it is unique and disturbing at the same time, and not to be missed. Don't wear a light-colored suit, and don't let your president bathe here, as either could be permanently stained orange.

     We left our final day free for a bike ride along the waterfront to the fort of Sao Bras, a 16th-century military installation that also houses a museum containing a collection of World War II Howitzers that would be able to meet your every Howitzing need. We took in the views of the harbor, then returned our bikes.

     Then it was back to New York, due in at work the next day, at least fortified with the memories of having conquered another foreign country....

PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS I

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-30-24)

 
     Part of my services as a respected journalist is to report on experiences I think my readers might themselves enjoy, while trying not to misuse phrases like, "respected journalist." I've had Portugal on my short list of vacation destinations for some time now, so maybe the list was longer than I thought. Lisbon is a great choice for any world traveler. It's clean and safe and there's plenty to do, see and eat. We rented an e-bike on 24-hour hire so we could spend an evening in the Alfama district, which is the soul of Lisbon. Its narrow cobblestone streets and cafes have a strictly European character. They eventually all start to look alike, but we navigated things deftly with only the use of a compass, knowledge of the movement of the stars, our raw courage and of course a Google Map GPS.

     I always recommend seeing a European city by bicycle, as long as you feel like you can find your way around. Once you're on it you don't have to deal with fares, and you can go door-to-door without having to walk to a subway or bus station, or the site itself. All that will turn you into a statue before you see your first statue.

     First we visited the castle of St. George, impenetrable by any force that does not possess 15 euros. It is a formidable Moorish structure whose oldest occupancy dates back to the 2nd century. It has since been used by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Portuguese and now, tourists. Those who scoff at us for not riding a conventional bicycle have not seen the hills you have to go up to get there. If you do conquer them the views are amazing, and you can climb up and around the parapets to see the entire city below from several vantage points. The place is also home to an ostentation of peacocks, which you can hear a mile away, because one sounds like a Siamese cat in heat on steroids that just lost its best friend, amplified through a public address system. We also got to meet some cute baby pea-chicks.

     A miradouro is a Portuguese lookout point, and there are several in the hills of Lisbon. We found the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, a scenic overlook not to be overlooked. Good views of the castle, the Tagus River and the sea of orange-tiled roofs below make it a selfie wonderland.

     Our dinner reservation was at a famous Fado spot in Alfama. It was worth the wait, and the passionate crooning of the various singers accompanied by the expert picking of the 10-string Portuguese guitarra, bass and guitar were melodic and easy to like. Fado ("fate") music is a traditional genre, with serious themes of melancholy, love, the plight of the poor and the draw of the sea. I pictured myself as a Fado singer, singing sad songs lamenting the loss of the Choco Taco and the cancelling of "Blue Bloods." I might have made a career of it if more things rhymed with "Choco Taco."

     The next day we rode around the city and visited the world-famous tile museum. My favorite exhibit was a large wraparound mural of the city made entirely of tile. It was imposing and beautiful, and showed exactly how we would get lost on the way back to our hotel. We ended up back at the waterfront area of the Tagus River to return our bikes. A ride on the Bica funicular is a colorful way to get you up into the Bairro Alto district, the heart of nightlife in Lisbon. Daylife wasn't bad either, and we stopped for coffee at the historic Luís de Camões plaza to people-watch. 

     It's worth mentioning that you wouldn't stop JUST for the coffee, which is an abstraction they don't understand too well in Portugal, and Europe in general. I don't know what people do to wake up in Portugal, but whatever it is does not involve a decent breakfast or coffee. If you want a perfect fried egg, you may have to wait until somebody sticks it on top of your steak for dinner. French toast, English muffins and Belgian waffles are almost unheard of in France, England and Belgium. I remember that when we ordered coffee in Greece that wasn't espresso we were treated to a muddy solution that looked and tasted like it came from the bottom of the crankcase of a 1968 Ford Fairlane. Anyway, back to the hotel we took the subway, which was clean and easy to navigate, and takes an ordinary credit card, a concept that deserves some credit.

     There was so much more to see, but we had to limit our itinerary to two days before continuing our journey. Fly on with me next time to the scenic islands of Portugal.

MR. MANNERS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-16-24)

 

     I was discussing rules of etiquette with reader Maria a little while ago, and I asked her why would you say "bless you" after a sneeze, when a cough seems much more serious? I discourage people from blessing me when I sneeze, and they ask "why?" After the 47th sneeze when there is finally a lull, they say, "Oh, okay."

     The human concept of manners demonstrates our dedication to civilization and separates us from the rest of the living beings on the Earth, who by the way are a bunch of animals. I thought my cat was different, because he waits near the door as I'm walkingto the bedroom, as if to say, "You first, sir, since I see that you are balancing a sandwich, a crossword puzzle and a glass of apple juice." I nod thank you, but the minute my foot crosses the threshold he darts in front of me and I almost trip over him, dropping the sandwich and spilling most of the apple juice. Even though the crossword puzzle is wet, at least now I know a four-letter word meaning "cat."

     I saw a picture of Trump walking in the rain with his wife Melania, holding an umbrella over only himself, and I thought, WOW, this guy is the perfect role-model! If there's only one umbrella, why should I hold half of it over someone else's head, ensuring that both of us will be half soggy? If we're both right-handed one of us will be doing almost everything we do, wet.

     There are a lot of new rules about how you address people. You used to start a letter with "Dear Sir," but then women learned  the complicated secrets of how to open a letter, so we thought "Dear Sir or Madam" might be better, but there turned out folks falling through the cracks, so we said "To Whom it May Concern," but when we found out it may not concern anybody, we went back to sirs and madams but people who identified with other genders or inanimate objects complained, so now I just open my correspondence with "HEY YOU," which seems both inclusive and nice.

     How did all this even start? There some rules of etiquette that are based on common sense. "Save the women and children first" is based on the idea that, if all the boats in the world capsized at the same time, you'll need women to bear children and carry on the human race. "YAY! We are saved! And there are no more men around to bully us about our use of hummus and unattractive sneakers! The first thing I'm going to do is binge-watch 'The Good Witch.' Then I'm going to purge-watch it!" "SO fun! And we can have children whenever WE want to have them! And carry on the human race! All we need is some... Hmmm. I'm not sure we thought this entirely through. But let's see that remote control!!"

     Other rules I would guess are based on human nature. Why is it always "ladies first?" Well, I don't know much about the history of etiquette but I know a whole lot about dudes. Somewhere around the middle ages, a typical middle-aged guy was probably out with his girlfriend and he wanted to keep an eye on her. If you knew her you would agree. The rear-view mirror hadn't been invented yet, so the only way to get the same view was to have her walk in front. 

     Some were based on personal safety. I've read that the custom of clinking glasses during a toast originated with the practice of pouring a little wine into each others' glasses, to prove that it was not poisoned. The bar for drinking buddies was much lower back then.

     Some rules are clearly outdated, such as the direction in an 1883 etiquette book that a man should be expected to choose the woman's horse. I would not want the pressure of having to gauge both the woman's and the horse's personality. The chances of offending both run fairly high, leading to a disparaging phrase regarding me and also the horse I rode in on.

     Etiquette is more confusing now than it ever was, that's for sure. I already covered gender pronouns and their (they/them) use. I understand that I shouldn't wear white after Labor Day, even though I don't understand why. But on what date does after one Labor Day become before the next Labor Day? And what about civil disobedience? Is that good manners or not? An example of civil disobedience might be: "I only wanted to burn down the courthouse, but the fire spread because I was holding the door open for the ladies." 

     I don't know all the rules but I do try to be nice to people, on the off-chance that they might be nice back. It's not good manners to get into an argument with me about manners. "Rick, you shouldn't chew with your mouth open, especially if it is full of lies." "Excuse me, but did I not hold the door for you?" "Yes you did, and it was a revolving door and I banged my knee pretty good."

PRAYER BNB

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-02-24)

 

     After you come to the conclusion that you need to downsize your life, the next logical step is to buy a smaller place to live, which is what we did. And now we have downsized into two houses: mission accomplished! I think we can have the same amount of stuff in the smaller house, if each item was a third of the size that it is now. I can see I'm going to be good at this.

     The place is not far from the beach, so my idea is to rent it out as an Airbnb when we're not there. The place needs a little work. The first thing we did is take down all the signs that were over the doorways to each room. Over the bedroom was a sign that said "Romance," and I am not kidding about this. I guess if you reached that point in your marriage when you wondered where all the romance had gone, you could just follow the signs. You can expect a little more subtlety from me with the signs, like maybe "Merge," or "Yield," or "Slow Men at Work."

     I'm now a home improvement subcontractor. I'm also the contractor, and I'm not thrilled with my work. I may have to say something, but I don't want to come down to hard, because it's hard to get good help these days, and I'd hate for me not to even show up. 

     Things got off to a rocky start. I spent all day fixing up some furniture and I got glue all over my fingers, and when the sun went down I realized the electricity wasn't turned on yet. I forgot to charge my phone, so I had to drive around with it plugged into my car charger, but since I'm unfamiliar with the area I got lost. I have a GPS on my phone, but since I had glue all over my fingers it wouldn't read my security-activated fingerprint. I considered committing a minor felony so that I could get a more accurate fingerprint. That's when I realized I needed a nap.

     I read that you shouldn't furnish an Airbnb with a kitschy or antique look. Instead of Louis XV furniture, modernize the look with a Louis XVI furniture. All we could really afford was the Louis CK look. Don't fall victim to common decorating mistakes, like hanging your wall art too high, unless it's ugly, then it should be hung from the highest yardarm. Any nudes should be tasteful and well hung.

     I read somewhere that people want to feel like they're staying in a hotel. We found a housekeeper that even put a paper band around the toilet seat and made a little origami flower out of the toilet paper. I realized I had to go to the bathroom, and the housekeeper had already left, so I had to scotch tape the toilet seat band back together, and I made a toilet paper flower that looks like a snapping turtle.

     I guess I'm also technically a businessman now, and I need to pay attention to things that were none of my business before. I was thinking about joining the small businessmen's association, but at six-foot two I'm sure I would not qualify, unless they set a pretty high bar for admission.

     I'll be watching every penny in order to make ends meet. The trick with running your own Airbnb is to advertise a lot of great activities, and then make them almost impossible to actually do, so that it's their own idea to have a lousy time. Save money wherever you can. I'll install one of those motion-detector faucets, so you can't just sit there and wash your hands every time they get dirty. Water doesn't grow on trees, you know, at least I don't think it does. The one in the restroom where I work is perfect, because it only detects the motion of me walking away from it. Nothing will get it to flow. I've tried running in place, spelling the words "I hate you" in semaphore and performing the "Heartland" song from Riverdance. Motion denied. I also tried the paper towel dispenser, which is a motion detector too. I shook my hands underneath it, and the faucet finally went on.

     Don't worry, we'll provide complimentary soap. Complimentary because of the compliments you'll receive after using it. "Wow, what is that smell?" "That's the boutique soap I used at the Airbnb I stayed at. It's 'tree bark and asparagus,' with hints of bacon, motor oil and despair. I should have taken some home with me, because we have raccoons." 

     During your stay I will act as the concierge, if you'll pardon my French. Feel free to ask me anything. At the end of our conversation, I will say, confusingly, "There is nothing more I can do for you, no?" Depending on what your answer is, in either case I will do nothing more for you.
     It all sounds like great fun, especially if you're hard of hearing. See you at the shore!

THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (4-24-24)

 

     If I ever meet an alien from another planet, we would have so many questions for each other that it would take a lifetime to ask. And then I would need another lifetime to hear the answers. And I only have 10 minutes till the ballgame comes on, so I narrow it down to three questions for each of us. I'll start: "What do you call that craft you landed in?" "It's identified as a flying object." "Where did you learn to speak English?" "Same place as everyone else: American soap operas." "Out of all the countless number of galaxies, how did you find us?" "Well, after I heard the word 'recalculating' about a million times, I made a right at Jupiter and a left at Uranus. That was a JOKE."

 

     His turn: "Can you take me to your leader?" "I can, but you'll have to trust me on this, our time would be better spent at Dairy Queen." "I've noticed that sometimes when music is played, humans react strangely and gyrate themselves in an attractive or quite unflattering way, depending on their sex. What is that about?" "Well, music triggers a sympathetic reaction in the brain based on the pulse in the bloodstream that causes the super-heating of ions in the body, which are then cooled by moving the limbs through the atmosphere at higher than normal rates of speed. It's called dancing. I made up the thing about the ions. Well, this sure was fun, and there's a DQ three blocks from here." "Don't I get a third question?" "Oh yeah, of course, but I guess that was it."

 

     I think that if I was abducted by aliens, dancing would be harder to explain than that. I also think that if they had seen me dancing, they would not have abducted me. I'd be the first to admit that I am not a good dancer, if so many others had not beaten me to it. The one thing I have going for me is that, as a drummer, I have a very good sense of rhythm. So I simply move whatever still moves to the tempo of the music, and wiggle the rest. If it doesn't wiggle or move, I drink it before it does. As a strategy this has worked quite well, meaning that I am rarely asked to dance.

 

     But I enjoy watching others dance, as a spectator sport. Sometimes I ask a woman if she'd like to dance. Sometimes she says yes. And I say, go right ahead, don't let me stop you. You can learn a lot about a person by how they do it; it's the most basic form of physical expression there is. Some people are very visceral and dance as if they are doing calisthenics. After the first calisthenic it's obvious that they're trying to hard. In the words of the great Bear Bryant, let the game come to you. Bear Bryant was an underrated dancer.

 

     Some say that while Fred Astaire got all the acclaim, Ginger Rogers did everything he did, only backwards and in high heels. And for that reason, in order to make myself a better dancer, I've been practicing doing things backwards and in high heels, and I burned myself on the barbecue. I tried to refine my moves in front of a mirror so that I could learn to "dance as if no one was watching." This was an appropriate idiom, since there were things that went on in that mirror that even I couldn't watch.

 

     If you want to know exactly how men and women are different, you can see it vividly demonstrated on the dance floor. A woman can look around and think, if I had the right shoes right now I would be perfect. A guy taking honest stock of himself might realize, I may have to sell myself cheap to someone that owns a bulldozer. A girl knows all the lyrics to the song, and sings them while performing hand gestures for emphasis. The guy is picturing them the morning after their first night together at an off-brand motel, arguing about which continent a continental breakfast should be from.

 

     Under the disco lights, I've got this: I belt it out with confidence, looking in her eyes, "loud blue whale, stepped on a snail, a can of corn is steamin'." And the girl I'm dancing with stops cold. "What the hell are you singing? The words are, 'Out on bail, fresh out of jail, California dreamin’.'" "Really?" I ask. "I was doing the live bootleg version." Luckily she can no longer hear me over her loud smiling as she poses for a selfie.

 

     When our song is over, my girl says, "Wow after seeing that, I'd love to see you REALLY move!" I am beaming with pride; maybe I'm not as bad as I thought. She says, "How long do you think it would take to pack up all your belongings?" I slink out of the dance club, and from the parking lot through the moonbeams I can see the alien waving at me from the spaceship, so I guess I'm stuck here for now.

JUST WRITE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (4-11-24)

 

      I'm approaching my nine year anniversary writing for this paper, and it has been an absolute joy, for one of us at least. Maybe you read this column with your morning coffee, and that's how you were able to quit coffee. Maybe you read this article to find an intelligent take on things you hadn't thought of before, only to find that I haven't thought of it either. Maybe you line your parrot's cage with it, and I'd like to think that it gives him a chuckle once in a while. Whatever the reason that you read a newspaper, please keep doing it, because that's where ideas are exchanged. And if you don't like any of my ideas, you can exchange them for credit.

     It's only fitting that I would take to writing, based on my SAT scores in high school. In the math section I scored a 425, which is about the same score you would get if you dipped your cat's paws in #2 pencil shavings and let him stroll around the pages of the test looking for other pencils to knock off the desk as he filled in the answers. My verbal score wasn't that much better, but when I wrote an essay in my college application, I was quickly accepted merely to prevent me from ever doing it again.

    Sometimes people will ask a writer where he gets his inspiration. For me, thinking of inane things is what I would normally do anyway. When I look at the crazy world around me, it doesn't take much effort to make it a little crazier. It might be an obscure reference, or a play on words, or some goofy dialogue. I carry a pad around me, and if I think of something that doesn't make much sense I write it down. If I think of something intellectually advanced I just chalk it up to bad luck, and don't bother to write it down. Other times idea output is directly proportional to alcohol input. 

     Many clever things I come up never make it into this column, and you'll just have to take my word that they were clever. Because writing a humor column is a lot like having an argument with a bully; you always think of something REALLY GREAT to say well after the opportunity to use it has passed. Another fertile time for the germination of ideas is in bed at night. Many creative people have expressed the same thing. An observation might wander into my brain looking for a place where it won't be disturbed, but I don't jot it down since it was SO GOOD I'll be able to think of it tomorrow. Will I remember what it was after I fall asleep? In my dreams.

     I'm an avid reader of novels, and that's inspiring enough. I don't read a lot of science fiction because I'm afraid that it might not be fiction. I like murder mysteries; I read them for my health. My health, you ask? Yes, because I know every possible way you might try to kill me, and trust me, you won't get away with it. But most of all I like characters, people who do and say things that make you want to get to know them better.

     It's less strenuous for authors than it used to be because there are more words now. This year alone, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word "influencer" to the language. That's fine, but if I get pulled over for driving under the influence of an influencer, I may be the only one not laughing. Merriam Webster admitted "yeet," which means, well, I have no idea what it means even after I read the definition.

     Dictionaries are SO heavy that we could get rid of a bunch of words and no one would miss them. "Hat box," "clothes pin," "toll call," just put them in the dust bin, along with "dust bin." Words we use all the time but have no good reason why, like "okey dokey," you can deep-six those, too. In fact, you can deep-six "deep-six" as well. 

     I sometimes publish these columns in a blog so that people all over the world can see what Americans are like if they were anything like me, and I've recently been logging hundreds of hits a day from the city-state of Singapore. Either Singaporeans have an unusual sense of humor, or they are somehow using it to create spam or sow seeds of chaos somehow. If that's the case, I amuse myself by thinking that my blog is being open-sourced in searches by their artificial intelligence models. I can't wait to see how that comes out.

     Contrary to the way I am in person, in print I have to strive to offend people as seldom as possible- I try not to say anything too racy, make fun of orange-looking presidents, or religions, races, creeds or things that I don't agree with that almost everyone else agrees with. That doesn't leave much to work with, but if it makes me laugh, I'll find it.

     So thank you for reading, and the thought of nine more years of writing gives me the yeets, and that means more than you could possibly know. Or less, I'm not exactly sure which.

HAIR THERE AND EVERYWHERE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (3-14-24)

 
     Nothing says more about your personal style than your hair. I firmly believe that you can track the entire thread of your life by mapping the different stages your hair has gone through. It's like cutting a tree open and counting the rings, only less messy but perhaps more painful. Now that the '80s are long over maybe you wish you had tried the tree method rather than allow yourself to be photographed and run the risk that Facebook Memories may someday be invented.

     My hair has been through many trials and tribulations, and I wish I had been more sensitive to what it was going through. I was bald at a very early age. It made my head look too large for my body, and my self-esteem took a beating. I tried a comb-over for a while, but I didn't even have enough hair for that. I considered plugs, but I was afraid of electrocuting myself. It wasn't until later that I found out that MOST babies are bald. My hair grew in and I felt much better. Then my teeth started falling out, but that's a story for another time. (I did get money for them under my pillow, so I tried acquire more teeth from alternate sources, and put the money into a no-load, tax-deferred vehicle, and I wish I could remember where I parked it.)

     What was your best hair? If you're a woman I don't even have to look at you to know. My theory is that 85 percent of all women look best with shoulder-length hair. Seven percent might look good with long hair, but that's usually because they ALWAYS had long hair, and it's hard to picture them any other way. About 5 percent of girls look good with short hair but would look even better with longer hair. About 3 percent can pull off the bald look, but those are usually model types who could eat you for dinner, so you generally want to pretend you didn't notice they were bald. Another 2 percent are not good with fractions. A girl once told me she used to have long hair all the way down her back, but it's unusual for girls to have such a hairy back.

     If you survived the '80s I bet you teased your hair, possibly in order to save everyone else the trouble. Maybe you lightened it. Maybe you darkened it. Maybe you straightened it, maybe you curled it, maybe you used something called a crimper. But I doubt you just left it alone. I knew a girl who I guess wante

     When I was a kid my Dad used to cut my hair, and he was spectacularly bad at it. He took a little of the top, a little off the sides and then cut my bangs at a 45-degree angle, so I would have had to walk around with my head tilted sideways for it to be straight. He did it for free, so I couldn't even ask for my money back. I later found a book on his bookshelf detailing how you could cut a kid's hair EXACTLY that way, and I realized that that is why children run with scissors.

     These days I only get my hair cut a couple times a year, mostly because I'm too cheap to do it more often. A haircut and a shave isn't two bits anymore, you know. If you're too young to remember, two bits is a quarter, which doesn't seem weird until you consider that one bit must be 12 and a half cents. Anyway, after the haircut, J.D. sometimes asks me if I want product in my hair, but he won't say which product. In case it might cost more I tell him just to use by-products instead.

     It seems like the older you get, the more innovative hair becomes. No longer content with sprouting from your head, it seeks alternate, more adventurous avenues of germination. Your nose, your ears, your neck and other, odder frontiers, places where no human has yet planted the flag of sovereignty. My wife even found a little stray hair sprouting from her chin and claimed that it was mine.

     You always want the hair you don't have. I never liked my super-straight hair, but when I got older it gradually became curly. When I realized it was curly because it went gray, I didn't like that either. I had salt-and-pepper hair, but my cardiologist didn't like THAT. So, even if you're not thrilled with your hair, don't do anything drastic or weird that will make your husband say HOW could you do this to ME? The grass is always greener on the other side, but that's not a good reason to for your hair to be.