Like sand through the hourglass

Sunday is a big day for me. It’s the day I begin my last year as a 50-something and head inexorably toward the frontier of senior citizenship, a place I never, ever envisioned myself.

Not that turning 60 next summer will be a tragedy. God knows it hardly even qualifies as old anymore. But there is something much more youthful-sounding about 59, and the thought of crossing over into my 60s has me saying, “Uh oh.”

And so, I am treating this coming year, my 59th, as if it were my last. I am going to do everything I’ve been avoiding, some things I’ve always wanted to do, and some things I never thought I’d do in a million years. I look forward to being delighted, daunted, and scared out of my wits. At the end of…(Read more)

What Do Women Want?

Of all the questions men ask about women, the grandmother of them all is “What do they want?”

I can see why they’d be confused. After all, we send mixed messages. We say we want a good guy and we’re attracted to the bad boys. We want to be independent but we love being taken care of. We want professional recognition but are secretly thrilled when a guy says we’re pretty.

The age-old question “What do women want?” has been addressed by Hollywood a bazillion times, most literally in the 200 movie “What Women Want.” In this romantic comedy, Mel Gibson, an ad man, has an accident which renders him able to read women’s thoughts. He uses this gift to try to bring down his nemesis, a woman (Helen Hunt)…(Read more)

Give me a call, Steve

It’s just a fact. Whatever your professional expertise, you can’t help using it to judge others’ efforts. If you’re a chef, a restaurant meal has you doing a critique in your head. If you’re an interior designer, you’re mentally re-arranging your friends’ furniture and accessories. If you’re a writer, you edit as you read anything at all, even letters from your mother.

So when Apple CEO Steve Jobs faced the nation to announce what he was going to do for unhappy iPhone 4 customers, my 20 years of public relations experience kicked in.

The issue, in a nutshell, was that some iPhone 4 users experienced dropped calls when they held the phone in a certain way. The media were outraged, comedians were delighted, and parodists had a field day with this perceived…(Read more)

Girls Rule, Also Drool

The object of my affection was pink and dainty. It hung on a rack at Target with other tiny, adorable pink things, next to yellow and blue things that were passably cute, but not unbearably precious like the pink ones. It was a pink baby dress with matching booties and my shopping companions and I were stopped in our tracks by its sheer sweetness.

My last baby was born 32 years ago today, when Dr. Wagner’s triumphant, “It’s a boy!” shattered forever my unquenchable desire for a daughter.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade either one of my male offspring for anything (although, if you had made an offer when they were teenagers…) They are my pride and joy and are the best thing I’ve ever made, even with their propensity to dismantle every piece of electronic…(Read more)

The Trick is to Ignore the Evidence

Has this ever happened to you? Someone sends you a candid photo they took of you and you get a glimpse of how others see you. The camera doesn’t lie, but you’ve learned to make it fib a little when you pose for photos. You jut out your chin to disguise your wattles, open your eyes wide to hide you droopy lids, suck in your stomach, square your shoulders, and turn your best side to the camera, much as you do to the mirror every morning. We all do it—if we didn’t fool ourselves about how we look we’d never go out of the house.

Then, someone catches you unaware and you see yourself as you appear to the rest of the world. It’s humbling, and sometimes shocking.

I am very good at fooling myself. In fact, I’m a world-class chump when it comes to believing my own lies. Here’s an example…(Read more)

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

I don’t know nothin’ about raisin’ no girls.

I have two sons, three years apart, and my child-raising years were full of adventures like tiptoeing through a minefield of Hot Wheels and Legos in the middle of the night, breaking up wrestling matches, and searching under beds for dirty underwear on laundry day. (If you have to ask why it was hidden under the bed, you’ve never had boys.)

I always suspected that it would have been different with girls. Last weekend I had the chance to find out.

Keeper and I have been wanting to visit the California Academy of Sciences ever since it opened. We’ve followed the rave reviews, read about the four-story rainforest contained therein, and made vague plans for a field trip there sometime in the future, maybe when relatives visit.

Our excuses for putting off our museum visit were threefold: the challenge of parking in Golden Gate Park, fear…(Read more)

Scrambled Scribblings from a Scattered Scribe

Sometimes an idea doesn’t work when trying to pen a 500-word column. It’s like trying to make a skirt when you only have enough material for the front. That doesn’t mean that ideas can’t be stitched together in what George Carlin used to call “brain droppings.”

Here’s what’s dropped out of my brain lately. You might want to put on some rubber gloves.

Why, oh why is it a rule that real estate ads must include a photo of the agent? I don’t care what the agent looked like 15 years ago – show me pictures of the house. There are some agencies that even put the agent’s photo on the “for sale” sign. According to one such sign on my street, there will be an open house next Sunday, hosted by a big-haired lady who will be time-traveling from the ‘80s to earn her commission. Either that,…(Read more)

Second Half – “a bright spot in a grim world”

Second Half is a running commentary on everyday life for Baby Boomers and those who love them.

It has been hailed as “hysterical, sophisticated, biting, thought-provoking, and just plain funny.”

The column explores such things as what to do when your child comes home with a tattoo; how to make orthopedic shoes sexy; and the key to a happy marriage (low expectations).

Published in six Bay Area newspapers from 2004-2009, the column is now exclusively available online.

Avoid a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Buy a Gift

Nothing brings out the angst like Valentine’s Day. Singles are desperate to be coupled, couples are anxious to stay out of the dog house, and retailers are frantic to sell us candy, flowers, and trinkets that will ensure a romantic ending to the big day.

Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is fraught with peril.

First, there’s the age-old man-woman problem of unexpressed (and therefore unfulfilled) expectations. You know how this goes – SHE expects a gift, a romantic gesture, a little extra cuddling, and HE walks in the door with new recycling bins he found on sale at Home Depot. Mayhem ensues, ending with his plea from the couch where he’ll be spending the night: “You never told me Valentine’s Day was important to you!”

To which I say, baloney! If she is female, Valentine’s Day is important to her. When she says, “Don’t get me anything this year”…(Read more)

Assumptions Hide the Truth

You’d think we’d be over it. At our age, we should have learned not to judge someone by what they wear, what they do for a living, or where they live. Indeed, there’s a famous best-seller that instructs us not to judge, lest we be judged.

Yet, we still make all sorts of assumptions about people based on little or no information.

Take Keeper, for instance. When we meet all those years ago, I took one look at him and my first thought was, “I’ll bet he teaches social studies.”

Now, the only basis I had for this judgment was the fact that he had a bad haircut and was wearing clothes that were at least 15 years out of date. I don’t know what pegged him as a teacher. With the haircut and the clothes he could have been a felon just released from the penitentiary.

As it…(Read more)