The Growing List of Things I Don't Understand

When I was 20 I knew everything, but now I'm five years from being three times that there's a growing list of things I don't understand.

Why do women ask questions when they don't really want an answer? Why do people say bad things about themselves when you give them a compliment?

How come no one knows how to merge? Why do people lead by being rude and nasty, when if they simply asked courteously I'd do everything I could to help them? Does this work well in other areas of their life?

Why does my favorite football coach antagonize the media every day on every question? He persists in his East Coast brusqueness when they are just doing their job, and their job promotes his job, and earns him the cushy corner office with the carpet and leather-bound chairs.

We pulled out all the combat troops out of Iraq, but left behind 50,000 in non-combat roles. Isn't there a strong likelihood that 50,000 Americans, in an unstable country with a history of 5000 years of mayhem and religious fanaticism, are likely to become a target for insurgents, that retaliation, sabotage, terrorism, hostage-taking and suicide bombings are a certainty, and within a year there'll be a act of reprisal so horrific it's likely to pull us back into this mess? The war in Iraq has been the longest in U.S. history. It has cost 4,000 American lives and billions of dollars. It plunged us into centuries-old hatreds and sealed the fate of the world. If we're leaving we ought to leave. It seems to me we should have left the day after Saddam Hussein was captured. I don't understand global politics. Most days I don't want to.

Why do I pull all my putts to the right, and if work really hard at correcting this, I start pushing them to the left? How can a hole four feet away be so hard to reach? If it exasperates me so much, why do I always come back tomorrow? It's a game for fools, which explains my fascination with it.

The list grows daily and is inexhaustible. Why does my family leave a quarter cup of milk in the bottom of the jug? Why do we fall asleep with the light on and kick off the covers? Why does everyone charge a fee to make a payment, and answer the phone with annoying recorded voices that ask a dozen irritating questions before you can get to a real person?

In a just world, lemon meringue pie would be good for you, and all the vitamins would be in a bacon. To reach 60 you have to let go of foolish hopes for justice and logic and consistency. Just tap the brakes until everyone joins the stream of traffic. Eventually we'll all get where we're going, and someone will wake up and turn off the lights.

Grumpy Old Man III

I'm rapidly becoming the old man I vowed never to be. When I wake up in the morning I take a silent inventory of what hurts. My back. My shoulder. My hip. I clear my throat with that same disgusting suck of snot my father used to do. I'm cranky and irritable. I'd just as soon go back to sleep.

Even into my forties I was an athlete. I played a 150 games of softball a summer and when I stopped doing that I practiced golf four hours a day. Although you'd never tell from the current state of my game. I ran. I lifted weights. I felt a dozen years younger than my age.

Yesterday we went out to the nine-hole pasture where we play our casual rounds, and everything hurt. It hurt to sit or stand or swing a club. I left a four-foot putt an inch short. My chips skittered short of the green. I made 34, a decent score for my skill level, but didn't enjoy a single moment. My mindset sucked. The other day at work I had chest pains and a stabbing pain on the right side of my face. I called my wife at lunch and she urged me to go to the doctor. I told I couldn't, because I'd get an occurence for leaving shift. My boss is a peach of a guy. We take 2000 calls a month, many of them from cranks and abusers and fools. When he does our monthly evaluation he pulls out our very worst customer survey of the month, and bases his evaluation on that. He's a head hunter, a despot, a fat man with tiny hands and a small mind. I'd like to choke him. I'd go real slow.

I should go to the gym and stretch my aches and wounds, but I'm going to go to bed and start this day over. This time I'll try to wake up on the right side of the bed. I'll have a little dish of ice cream and flip off a cop on the way to work. Maybe he'll shoot me.

Don't mind me, I'm only kidding. After all I'm just a grumpy old man. I have four days off starting tomorrow. Maybe I'll go hiking and clear my head.

Effusive Praise for Mediocrity

I watch "America's Got Talent" every week, but the show confuses me. Piers Morgan buzzes a juggler off the show if he misses one ball, or a magician if he fumbles a single card, but singers get a free pass. A singer can utterly butcher a song, flat, toneless, barely controlling her breathing, a 65% rendition of a song done far better by the original artist, and Morgan and the other judges praise their courage and improvement. Why are the standards so much lower for vocalists?

Last week a female contestant covered "Right Now" by Carrie Underwood. She shouted the chorus and was painfully flat in the first verse, but somehow the panel gave her massive credit for showing up. A young man did a county fair talent show version of John Mayer, miserable and mediocre, and you'd have thought he nailed it. An unknown singer ought to be exceptional to be passed forward, because everybody thinks they can sing. American Idol and its various imitators have given far too many people false hope. Hope is a good thing, but not when it's based on delusion and low standards.

Complicating things even further is the fact that many popular, successful acts aren't that talented. Musicians are so digitally enhanced and overdubbed in the studio that many careers are forged simply because the "artist" looks good vamping in a video. They even lip-synch in live performances. It's fundamentally dishonest. A performer that is the authentic, total package is rare.

I was stunned by the 10-year-old girl who sang a classical song, Jackie Evancho from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She truly had a stunning voice. Some of the performer who advance on the show get far too much credit merely for getting through a 90-second performance. I hope next time she performs a crossover tune, a popular ballad, to give the audience a broader frame of reference for appreciating her talent. It will make the difference between true artistry and singing well enough more apparent.

A Quick Update from Chaos Central

We're trying again. She came to me crying and I took her to my arms, and Saturday after work we went dancing. The last few days have been gentle and sweet. For her birthday I bought her a black amethyst gift set from Bath and Body Works, some pink golf balls and flowers and a bottle of wine. Things are quieter and gentler, and I'm hopeful we can stay out of the storms.

The Ducks open fall practice today, and Ethan loves his golf club. Stephanie had to keep it out of range of the TV. He plays with it all the time. Work is going better. It's tough to maintain when your life is uncertain and chaotic, especially when people start in about how a tiled picture on their television is the worst thing that ever happened to them.

We're going to play golf today and the sun is coming out. I know I am strong enough to endure anything and blessed with life and health. The details we will sort out.