Category Archives: Confessional

The After Party: Don’t Mess with My Morning Mess

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Julie Seyler

BY LOIS DESOCIO

8087475889_486b89dece_m

Morning sun on soil.

Since I began to move through this proverbial midpoint in life, the easy-going and flexible me has been noticing that there are a few things that I will absolutely not stand for, and will not budge on. Take cleaning up after a dinner party – as in: Do Not Clean. I like to save that task for the morning. I want to wake up to the mess from the night before. It reminds me of how much fun I had. I especially love that first shuffle into the kitchen the next morning, often after not enough sleep, and feeling a bit green. I survey the wreckage: dirty dishes in the sink, grainy glasses clumped together on the counter, soiled napkins under the dining room table, crumbs all over the place, sticky forks, saggy candles, stained tablecloth, chewed toothpicks …

Understand, that no one else in my house is allowed this luxury. I would holler at my kids if they left so much as a glass in the sink on a normal day (“Clean up! Put that in the dishwasher!”), but would also holler if they started moving plates during, and after, a party (“Don’t clean up! Get away from the dishwasher!”)

dirty dishes 3

This is a good morning.

What all of this really comes down to – the essence in that leftover clutter – is the joy I get from bringing people together to eat. I can’t get enough of it, so let me stretch it out as much as possible. Let me have a visual mulling-over of the whole night on the next day. I’m especially wedded to this as I’ve become aware of the value of time spent with friends and family. The certainty of years of dinner parties to come is more fragile than it used to be. I treasure that fraternity that develops through hours spent eating, drinking and talking at the dinner table – I don’t want it to miss a beat. And I don’t want to miss anything, so I spend days beforehand cooking, and setting up every last detail, so everything is covered and ready to go the next day. All I have to do is set the party in motion and jump in. And stay. Clean-up duty is never invited – it would cut the night short, and deprive me of my post-party pleasure. (I often have to gently remind my well-meaning friends as the night wears down: “Sit down! Don’t clean up!”)

And the little gems that pop up after any gathering, like that half-full bottle of wine that I recently found, spilled, in the bathroom, would most likely have caused a huff and an eye-roll had I found it in a cleaning frenzy in the wee hours after the party. But the next morning, in the glow of the after party, I smiled. It meant my guests had as much fun as I did, and didn’t feel the need to clean up.

dirty xmas dishes 4

Sometimes, even the food stays out all night.

What I Want For Christmas: A Bunch of Feel-Good, Extremely Formulaic, Holiday Movies

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Men

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Hearts trump

Hearts trump.
All drawings, and photo, by Julie Seyler.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I have had a Christmas tradition for the last several years: I set my TiVo to record a couple dozen Christmas movies, and then I watch them for weeks and weeks. Sometimes I run into Valentine’s Day. Why do I subject myself to what are often horrible movies – formulaic and predictable to the extreme? Because that’s what I want at Christmas. No surprises. Just assured, feel-good happy endings with not a few tears.

For example, recently I watched a film on The Hallmark Channel called “Come Dance With Me.” Andrew McCarthy plays an ambitious finance professional who meets up with a woman who runs a small dance studio. Of course, McCarthy’s client wants to rip down the dance studio and put up a mall, or something else that makes a lot of money. McCarthy falls in love with the woman, and then faces the classic question found in almost all Christmas movies. He actually stops a co-worker and asks him, “If you had to choose between love and money, what would you choose?”

Hearts-3/Money-2

Hearts-3/Money-2.

The co-worker says he would try for both, but McCarthy won’t let him off the hook.

“No, if it was just one or the other, what would you choose?” The co-worker opts for money. And of course, that’s the same choice that Ebenezer Scrooge and Henry F. Potter make in “A Christmas Carol,” and “It’s A Wonderful Life,” respectively. But McCarthy, being the protagonist of the piece, must choose love over his job.

Continue reading →

My 40th High School Reunion: Same Cast, Acting Like Adults

17 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Men

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , ,

RobertSmith1

BY BOB SMITH

Because of the decline I might see in my classmates, and by the same token, what they might see in me, I was rightly apprehensive about attending my 40th high school reunion recently. As expected, our bodies are flabbier, our hair is grayer, and our faces are more wrinkled.

Bob today

But it was also strangely comforting, because the cast of characters have remained essentially the same.
There’s the gay guy all the straight guys hated in high school because the girls loved him when they would hardly give the rest of us the time of day. Here he is again – well-groomed, neatly-dressed, smiling and drawing women in like moths to a flame. And all for naught. All for friendship.

The pretty girl, who was really smart, is now a super-accomplished professional something-or-other, and her eyes are pulled three quarters of an inch closer to her ears on either side. Yes, she’s had some work done. She still looks pretty. But with eyes that shape, she might be mistaken for one of the Siamese cats from “Lady and the Tramp.”

Continue reading →

I Don’t Hang Loose When it Comes to Tight Pants

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

JBrands

Good Morning.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

“I could never wear those.” I heard this sentence twice recently while shopping. One time it was while I was picking out these big, bedazzled pink earrings. The other was when I was checking out three pairs of my favorite J Brand black skinny jeans. The women who said this to me, who appeared to be over 40, knew I was shopping for myself, because I was wearing big, bedazzled purple earrings, and black skinny jeans. I did have a moment about the jeans, and thought: maybe I shouldn’t wear these either – I’m over 50. There is that uptight, conventional wisdom that says older women shouldn’t wear tight anything. Or maybe if you do, you’re trying to look younger. Do this! Don’t do that!

But it was just a moment. Not only will I continue to wear them, I will be wearing them when I’m over 70 – just like Jane Fonda.

Black skinny jeans is pretty much all I wear these days. In fact I wear them every day. Unless I’m on the beach, in the shower, or in bed – I’m in my black skinny jeans.

To me, tight means a good fit. That small percentage of spandex helps them hug, and hold their shape. They’re comfortable. They’re fashionable. They’re me! They make me happy. And they let me work from the bottom up. Picking out the shirt, the earrings, is where I want to put my daily-dressing energies. (I love shoes, too, but they’re usually black – to match my jeans.)

Think flower stem, tree trunk, or maybe ice cream cone – all the good stuff is on top. My jeans make me a pedestal that sprouts color; essence. Add black heels, my legs look twice as long. (Those big earrings? They give my face sparkle and pop!)

You’ll find me in my black skinny jeans during the day.
Jeans dayAnd at night.
Jeans night

I have about a dozen pair, and they are all exactly the same. Which gives me my personal strength in numbers. That phrase used to mean: never wear the same thing twice in one week. Now it says: buy a dozen of exactly the same thing, and wear it every day.

Bottoms up!

I Want What She Has: Big Muscles

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Men

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Muscle Chick by Julie Seyler

Muscle Chick, by Julie Seyler

By FRANK TERRANELLA

When I was 12, I arm-wrestled a girl and lost. I had not entered puberty yet, and the girl had. As I remember, it wasn’t even close.  The girl, who was the same age as me, had initiated the match.  She asked me to show her my bicep muscle. Perhaps she was flirting, but I was oblivious. When I flexed my arm, practically nothing popped up. The girl smiled, suppressing a giggle. She also did not have a defined bicep, but she had a thick arm, and was simply much stronger than me at that age. From the moment she engaged her strength, and started to push against my hand, I simply could not stop her from pushing my pre-pubescent arm down to the desktop. She was proud of herself, and when we argued about anything thereafter, she would flex her arm and say, “Remember, I’m stronger than you.”

Soon after that, I entered puberty, and within 12 months, when I flexed my skinny arm, a hard, round muscle popped up. It was truly amazing to the girl. She knew that I had not started lifting weights, or even exercising.  Just on the basis of being a boy, I had developed a bulging bicep muscle bigger than hers.  And to add insult to injury, she found out when we had our re-match that I was now just a little bit stronger than her also.

I was never a gym rat in my teens and never had athlete-sized biceps. But like most men, I developed biceps in my teens that were bigger than those of the women I came across. While they were just average by male standards, I was confident that I was not going to lose a strength contest to any woman I might meet.

Then I hit 40. I noticed that my biceps did not have the peak they used to have when I flexed them. I noticed there was more fat on my arm covering the muscle.  By the time I hit 50, I noticed a decrease in arm strength.  Lifting heavy items to put them on a top shelf was not as easy as it used to be. I started to read articles in The New York Times and elsewhere that said I was losing one percent of my muscle mass each year. This was alarming.

And then I started noticing that many women were developing  biceps as large or larger than mine. I was walking in Midtown Manhattan one day, when I saw a young woman with biceps the size I had formerly only seen on men. These were not cute fitness biceps from aerobics; these were cannonball-sized guns on a beautiful woman.  And I loved them on her! And beyond that, I wanted them on me.

Continue reading →

The Beginning of the Middle

07 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

 

Julie’s reflection in a pool at Kwetsani Camp, Botswana.
Photo by Julie Seyler

BY JULIE SEYLER

Middle age began for me in April 2012, when I was 56½ years old. Before that, I felt, and perceived myself as young – not 20-year-old young, but 45-year-old young.  It shocked me to actually feel old for the first time in my life. I talked about feeling old when I turned 30 and 40, but this experience was visceral – a connection from the chronological age to a deep-rooted awareness in my heart. I never thought that was going to happen to me. I exercise. I eat right. I have a balanced life, filled with moderation. I follow Dr Oz’s advice. Wasn’t this supposed to shield me from getting old and feeling old?

Ha.Ha.Ha.

I became depressed, confused, anxious, and scared. I drew, because color and free-form lines are great for expressing angst. Perhaps it all sounds silly, but it was tumultuous and inverting – always leading back to the same questions:

Who am I now? Where am I going? What’s next? So how are the good times defined in the future? Will there be fun? I mean, really, laughter is a basic for survival.

The Identity War- by Julie Seyler

The Identity War. By Julie Seyler

Perhaps that sounds petty, trivial, and a non-starter, especially in light of the devastation and havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy.  How can I be worrying about “fun?”  And the fact is, since I wrote this passage about six months ago, when that first kick in the pants bumped me out of the complacent security and familiar routine of the left side of 50, it feels as if things will never be the same.

On November 6, a week after Sandy blasted the shorelines of New York and New Jersey wiping out beaches, cabanas, and businesses, someone near and dear to me, who just turned 60 was given a horribly sad diagnosis, and I was implanted with a prosthetic hip.

So will the good times return?  No doubt yes, but more importantly, will I remember to treasure the connections, friendships, passions, and simple joys that have accumulated in my life since way before I hit the right side of 50?

Is Cremation the Way to Go?

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Opinion

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Cemetary

19th Century Cemetery on W. 21st Street in Manhattan.
Photo by Julie Seyler

BY LOIS DESOCIO

My brother, Gerry, died this week last year. And since his life for decades was in Florida, but his family lives in New Jersey, the decision was made to cremate him, so we could bring him home, and have him home with us, forever. In the year since his death, two old friends have died, as well as a few parents of friends, and some relatives. The bulk of them have been cremated. As a result of all this, I have become obsessed with thoughts of cremation. Thinking of my brother (and six years ago, my father), going from whole to embers is unsettling. But is lying six feet under and turning skeletal any more pleasant?

My mother, on the other hand, who is a healthy 79 years old, says she doesn’t want to be cremated. Or buried. She wants a mausoleum. For the whole family.

Which brings me to this – I can’t decide, and if I drop dead tomorrow, it’s out of my hands, because, while I have a will, I left that part blank. I’ve always had visions, since my age was in the single digits, about what it must be like to be dead. Currently, my mental pictures have me with makeup on, dressed in my skinny jeans, and dangly, sparkly earrings, lying in a box in the ground, looking exactly the same, except I’m dead. Dead, but intact. But now I have to take it all seriously – I’m on the right side of 50. And it’s not that I’m feeling doomed – just more responsible.

Continue reading →

Hanging On to (And Finally Letting Go Of) the Chooba Diamond

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Men

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

the chooba diamond- drawing by Julie Seyler

A Little Chooba Diamond on Her Hand.
Drawing by Julie Seyler

BY BOB SMITH

Have you ever heard of the Chooba diamond? I invented it when I was 11.
In 1965, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons had a pretty big hit on pop radio with a song called, “Let’s Hang On.” It’s a bouncy anthem about love gone wrong featuring Valli’s powerful falsetto, and one of the verses begins like this:

That little chip of diamond on your hand
Ain’t a fortune baby but you know it stands
For the love (A love to tie and bind ya)
Such a love (We just can’t leave behind us) …

The chorus exhorts the girlfriend to:

Hang on to what we’ve got
Don’t let go girl, we got a lot
Got a lotta love between us
Hang on, hang on, hang on
To what we’ve got.”

Somehow, I misunderstood the first line of that verse.  I thought Frankie said, “that little Chooba diamond on your hand,” instead of “chip of:”

I’d had zero experience with diamonds (or engagement rings, or girls, for that matter), so I  assumed Chooba was a designation of origin for a rare type of diamond unknown to me.  The “ain’t a fortune baby” line made sense because he did say “little,” after all.  So in my quaint understanding, Frankie had purchased an engagement ring for his girl set with a minuscule, but nonetheless highly-prized and mysterious, “Chooba diamond.”

Continue reading →

I Don’t Want the Discount

29 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Confessional, Men

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

There’s nothing special about getting the senior discount at the movies.
Snapped by Julie Seyler

BY BOB SMITH

I just turned 58 years old, my wife is 56, and we’re fairly well-preserved, as they say. I have salt-and-pepper hair, lately more salt than pepper, but my face is relatively wrinkle-free and, if I do say so myself, I am reasonably attractive. The same is true of my wife Maria, who has a fantastic tan all summer and whose hair is even more brown than mine.

This past summer we went to the movies with Maria’s sister and her husband, who are both in their early 50s – which means the sunny side of 55. We agreed that the latest mindless mid-summer action flick would be an appropriate diversion for a cloudy day, and set off.

We got to the theater, one of these strip mall, ten-screen multiplexes, and stood patiently in line. When our turn came, I stepped up to the window and spoke through a metal grille in the glass to the worker inside. She appeared to be in her early 20s, dressed in torn jeans and a funky tattered shirt. Her attention appeared to be fairly evenly divided between issuing tickets and responding to whatever messages were popping up on the screen of the smart phone that lay on the counter, directly under her downcast gaze.

“Two adults for ‘Summer Action Movie,'” I said, sliding a twenty into the round, silver depression under the glass.

She looked up for a millisecond from the phone screen (someone was LOL about something, or no doubt would be soon) to grab the $20. As she slid it toward the cash drawer, she glanced at my face, punched a button on the console that caused two tickets to pop out of a slot in the counter, and began to make change. She ripped off the tickets, counted out my change, and slid the pile back through the hole in the glass.

“Enjoy yuh show,” she mumbled without conviction, smiling faintly as her eyes dropped to discover that one of her friends, someplace, was now LMAO.

The entire transaction had taken perhaps five seconds.

We were a bit early for the movie, which didn’t start for 40 minutes, which meant we would have to endure some shopping time in the adjacent strip mall. As we strolled across the parking lot, I remarked that going to the movies in mid-afternoon had its benefits, as I noticed that I had gotten more than the usual change back from my $20 bill.

“Must be an early bird special,” I joked.

“Wait a minute,” my sister-in-law said. “We got charged three dollars more than you.”

“That can’t be,” I said, reaching for her tickets. Sure enough, their tickets showed a price of $10 each, whereas ours were only $8.50. They were identical, I thought, until I saw that sinister two-letter abbreviation following the reduced price: “SR.”

I had gotten the senior discount! Without even asking for it! Without even being asked my age!

Continue reading →