July 2004 at Lake Ontario vs. July 2005 at an Oklahoma overlook.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in recent weeks we’ve been sharing the stories of our annual road trips that we undertook before I launched MCC in April 2012. Starting from the beginning and working our way forward, so far we’ve covered 1999 to 2004. Before we make the leap to 2005, a digression is in order regarding some personal development that affected, among other things, some of my vacation photos.
Looks dandy. Fails spectacularly.
It’s never too late to regret a Christmas gift whose inherent flaws were kept hidden at the time of unwrapping only to manifest weeks later like a time-delayed disappointment bomb.
At the time we were excited to be there and had no idea the stop sign was deep, clever foreshadowing.
When it’s time to pay respects and say goodbye to a cherished person, place, or thing, sometimes it’s good not to wait till the last minute. Better still, keeping in touch and enjoying their presence while things are going well means you don’t have to feel quite so lousy if they depart without you orchestrating a proper sendoff.
Today my wife and I had fun plans in downtown Indianapolis in the morning, a nephew’s birthday party out in Brownsburg in the afternoon, and a gap between them that might fit a nice lunch. Our schedule filled itself out when we learned this week that the Milano Inn, a renowned Italian restaurant serving the Circle City since 1934, would be closing its doors for good at the end of 2016, a year that just won’t stop racking up casualties. A husband-and-wife date before their farewell seemed in order.
Key word: “seemed”.
Another year, another free sticker. Too bad I haven’t owned a Trapper Keeper for sticker displays since junior high.
Once again it’s Election Day here in America, the taut finale to one of the worst seasons our political showrunners have written for us to date. When I began typing this shortly after a new episode of Chopped Junior ended, Twitter was having itself a series of roiling meltdowns as everyone insisted on paying too much attention to the early returns even though some states won’t be finished tabulating or even voting for the next several hours. That’s setting aside any pending conflict resolutions or triple-overtime recounts for those neck-and-neck battleground states where the Big Two are finding their supposedly easy leads in the Presidential race thwarted by votes siphoned away by third-party candidates and repelled away by their own morally compromised candidates and constituents.
Baked goodie courtesy of the upstanding citizens at Max & Benny’s in Northbrook, IL.
If you were of a certain age in the ’90s, you watched Full House the sitcom on ABC’s TGIF. You dreamed of Full House: the Reunion Special. You binged on Netflix’s Fuller House, the sequel. And if you attended Wizard World Chicago 2016, you could eat Full House: the cookie! If the studio has their way, you’ll just never quit Full House for the rest of your life!
At every convention my wife and I attend, we’re bombarded on all sides by dealers and collectors trying to convince us to buy their new or used merchandise because it contains familiar faces and images, trying to jack into our childhood memories via colorful collectible Pavlovian tokens not unlike the above cookie, which would make a fine Golden Gate Bridge road-trip treat if you deleted that obtrusive corporate logo.
Merchandise is the bait, and our own nostalgia is meant to be the fishing line, reeling ourselves in to be netted and financially filleted.
Come on down! It’s fun for the entire family here at Fire Station THX-1138!
Every year my wife and I attend two family reunions, both of them on her side. My family reunited exactly once about thirty years ago at some public park two hours away from home, where two cousins and I were the only attendees under 35, and the overall average age was somewhere in the lower 60s. That trivia and the crushing boredom are the only takeaways I remember. If they ever attempted an encore, I wasn’t informed. I’m fine with never knowing.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we shared photos from the 2016 edition of Anne’s dad’s side’s reunion, once again held the Sunday after Labor Day at the exquisitely sylvan, rugged, sprawling, visually arresting Turkey Run State Park in western Indiana. It’s a compromise between us central-Indiana Hoosiers and a healthy, distant branch of cousins and cousin-like hangers-on who live out in eastern Illinois. It’s a bit of a drive for all of us from our respective directions, but everyone agrees it’s pretty and non-boring.
This past weekend was the other reunion.
It’s rare to open the garage first thing in the morning and walk right into a sign that says, “It’s okay to leave the house today.” And yet there I was, face to face with this surprise rainbow. Perfect timing. I needed a rainbow this week.
On a board far, far away…
My son has been staying with us this week, getting away from his isolated college apartment for a bit to enjoy better cooking and some human contact. Twice this week we plowed into our stash of board games and had ourselves some old-fashioned family quality time. While we were immersing ourselves in other, tinier worlds and their simpler structures of governance, obviously we couldn’t know this would end up an atrocious week for American civilization beyond our cozy, secluded walls.
For fifteen years my mom and I worked at the same company in different departments. She retired May 31st after nearly fifty years in the rat race. This was the gift basket her coworkers assembled to help kick off her next era and keep her busy with creature comforts for the short term till she gets settled into a new daily groove. At least one of these items is outside her bailiwick, but such special occasions aren’t the right moment for nitpicking. I appreciate that they took to heart most of the ideas I gave them. Maybe she’ll surprise me and give those untested things a try. Or maybe she’ll hang on to them till Christmas and then hand them off to me or my wife. Whatever works for her.
Shortbread biscuit, big scoop of vanilla ice cream, generous serving of strawberries drenched in juice that spilled onto both hands and one shoe, and dollop of whipped cream that the top of the box flattened and made slightly less photogenic. This seven-dollar fundraiser dessert was fine by me.
I realize the popular thing for bloggers looking to commiserate with other bloggers is to participate in the popular #WeekendCoffeeShare, in which everyone pretends they’re drinking coffee while rambling about personal goings-on and this interaction eventually translates into superstar writing careers for one and all. I’ve never tried it because I’m not great at blogging according to a calendar (mine or anyone else’s), it’s established fact that I’m terrible at networking and will therefore toil in obscurity till I die satisfied with my choices, I never go to the kind of coffeehouses that serve coffee worth photographing, and I tend to avoid topics that would necessitate resorting to stock photos unless my brain refuses to let such a topic go. But I have new photos from a special occasion today, and a busy night ahead of me before an even busier weekend after that, so I ask your forgiveness for stream-of-consciousness multitasking a smidge outside the box.
Muhammad Ali. Prince. David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Patty Duke. Garry Shandling. Nancy Reagan. Abe Vigoda. Raymond’s mom. Frank Drebin’s boss. Grizzly Adams. TV’s Schneider. The Phantasm guy.
For these names and others you’d recognize, 2016 has been a bad year. Whenever three or more well-regarded famous people die within the same year, that year’s name is mud. Everyone curses its name and declares it Worst Year Ever. Add in one or more horrifying wide-scale tragedies, and that year will never be allowed a moment of recognition for all the good it hosted. 2016 isn’t halfway over, but if it were an internet user, it would already be receiving daily death threats and getting trolled into oblivion by millions of typists blinded by fury at all the implied promises broken by that stupid backstabbing jerk Baby New Year 2016. Remember in January when Ryan Seacrest invited us all to welcome that baby with open arms and hearts and hopes? Now WE HATE THAT BABY SO MUCH. THANKS, SEACREST.
The above musical number was performed in November 2014, four months after li’l Rosie’s double-lung transplant. I’m at a loss to add a review here other than something synonymous with “WOW”.
Fun trivia: if you try to pay Facebook to “boost” one of your posts so more than five followers will see it, they’ll refuse your money and deny the request if the post has no images, or if its primary image contains more text than picture. I learned that one firsthand in August 2014. Y’know, for science.
I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process and this fallen world’s degrading standards on my impressions of, reactions against, and general experiences with various works of art, commerce, wonder, majesty, and shamelessness. It’s my way of keeping the writing part of my brain alive and active, rather than let it atrophy and die. If you’ve read my “About” page, you know this part already.
With four years and 1,277 entries racked up, I’ve now spent more time and enthusiasm on this long-term project than I did in college, both attempts combined. I’ve learned a few things along the way. Sometimes I put one or more of those lessons to good use. Other days, I just gotta be me, and hope that’s good enough for anyone else outside my own head.
On Earth Day 2015 as a fun perk, my employer marked the occasion by giving out free tiny potted palms to every home office employee. They were three inches tall, probably the kind that professional greenhouses give out to kids visiting on field trips. Most of them were probably dead within a week.
Just for kicks, I decided to conduct an experiment by seeing what would happen if I actually tried to take care of it. One year later, behold the results.
1959 PSA commissioned by DC Comics editor Jack Schiff. Artist not credited.
Last month a dead holiday went and passed us by for thirtieth time in a row, and we all missed it. Shame on us. SHAME.
But are we worthy enough to celebrate it? Take the vintage quiz and check your own tolerance levels. Well, not you cabbage lovers. You people are monsters.
I guarantee this spaghetti dinner was not made by photographing someone else’s spaghetti dinner and then cranking out a replica on a 3-D printer.
Last night my lovely wife made spaghetti for dinner because it’s a thing we like. Buried inside the sauce are meatballs she made using a recipe online. It’s slowly becoming one of my favorite home-cooked meals. I’m sure Chopped judges would probably have copious disappointed notes about what they would do differently. They wouldn’t mix two different kinds of pasta just to use up a nearly empty box in the pantry. They’d make fresh sauce from scratch rather than rely on a national jarred brand. Their meatballs might be more consistently colored and stuffed with fifteen extra ingredients. They’d serve it on a set of plates that cost more than we spend on one week’s groceries, with a side of fresh bread bought that same morning from a renowned Italian baker. And so on.
Their level of pasta craft doesn’t invalidate our meal. But at the same time, Anne didn’t claim to create her own sauce recipe, or make her own pasta from the flour up. She’s not gunning for the position of Prego family matriarch. It’s just supper at home. I reiterate: to this biased reviewer, A-plus.
I was reminded of our evening meal plans earlier in the day when a friend of mine retweeted the following clever joke:
One of the twelve million “It’s funny because it’s true!” wisecracks that pop up on Twitter during any given day. Some go no further than a single circle of friends. Some might be shared with friends-of-friends. Some go “viral”, a word I’ve grown to detest. But you get the picture.
Then I was reminded of something else: I’d seen this joke before from another user. Possibly from more than one.
Author file photo, taken at an uncertain theme park circa 2006-2008, the years I used the Kodak EasyShare you see dangling from my lanyard. I ultimately decided not to buy the crown.
Welcome to Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 1200th entry! In the grand tradition of 20th century comic books and sitcoms that ran five seasons too long, every 100 entries we mark the occasion as a sort of accomplishment and sometimes celebrate it. Not all those 1200 moments have been winners, but they’re integral components in the comprehensive mosaic of the last few years inside my head — the distractions, the fancies, the traumas, the endless parade of lists.
Before I launched MCC on April 28, 2012, I’d already been writing here and there online for years. My early efforts at self-expression and public entertainment comprise a couple thousand Usenet posts (a few longform pieces in the bunch, mostly irretrievable and irrelevant now), several thousand message-board posts (much easier to sort through, a few of them previously transferred and preserved here), and a LiveJournal I kept for a few years but can barely stand to skim now. In 2006 the longtime message board that Anne and I call home received a software upgrade that added blogging functionality for any member who wanted their own little playground contained within the site itself. Between April 2006 and March 2012 I penned 110 intermittent entries before I decided to stake my own separate claim here among the WordPress territories. That virtually invisible blog was good practice in a number of ways, most of them involving some balance of creativity and humility in the face of a mostly empty studio, so to speak.
As part of this MCC celebration that I just realized could technically double as a “Throwback Thursday” nod, we present the following flashback to an essay originally published May 16, 2006. This oddity, which I’ve lightly edited for a broader audience, represents my very first “meta” post about the odd act of blogging. It was written within and for the confines of the internet equivalent of a shed with a single skylight, but I’m a little surprised how much of my nascent impressions still ring a bell today. Please enjoy, and thanks for being here.
I don’t own many neckties with pictures or characters on them partly because I’m finicky, partly because I’m not great at accessorizing, and mostly because ties are ridiculously expensive to a guy who hates more than $25 for a pair of shoes. Thanks to the benevolence of family and friends, though, I’m the proud owner of six Christmas ties that I wear to work every year as a personal countdown on the last six business days before Christmas. Guys like me may not have a lot of options for dressing all Christmassy in an office setting, but I enjoy making the most of what I’m given, and the Six Ties of Christmas are it.
I like all of them to varying degrees, but one of these means more to me than the others.
Right this way for storytime! But not about the obvious tie…
The Swedish Chef, Beaker, and Animal proved with “Ringing of the Bells” you don’t need a great singing voice to go caroling, but you may need safety equipment.
My wife Anne loves singing Christmas carols. She used to be first among her coworkers to begin singing them every year until she bowed to peer pressure and agreed to wait till at least after Columbus Day. I learned most of the catalog in grade school and willingly participated in three consecutive Christmas programs, even soloing once on “The First Noel” for an audience of hundreds of parents, none of whom had the clout to offer me a recording contract. Our old Bible study group used to visit group homes and nursing homes, serenade residents with a medley of timeless classics, and bring them baskets of cookies and/or fruit in the spirit of the season.
We love Christmas songs. We have a lot of fun singing them to appreciative crowds. We love being given the opportunity to sing for others as an act of service, an outpouring of faith, and an outlet for our pent-up expressive hearts. We’d join multiple caroling groups if the right offers rolled in. I blame our inactivity on our agent, George Glass.
But Christmas caroling isn’t as easy as it looks, especially if your fellow singers aren’t on the same page. We regret we’ve learned this the hard way. If You, the Viewers at Home, have ever considered singing Christmas songs to others, whether to praise Jesus or to have a good time, we offer you seven handy tips for simplifying your caroling mission, bringing a merry gleam to the eyes of others, creating a pleasant memory, and hopefully remaining on good speaking terms with the rest of the choir by the end of the night.
Plan A for me tonight was to write about either of the two new movies I’ve seen in theaters over the past week. I have a few Plan B’s stored up in case of mental short-circuit. Tonight, I just…can’t. Nothing I want to enjoy sharing is working.
Ever since I got home, I’ve found it impossible to concentrate on writing because I first had to spend a while catching up with online anguish over the San Bernardino shootings. And, bringing up the rear in all news roundups, the smaller shooting in Savannah, dwarfed and nearly invisible next to San Bernardino, like that time The Love Letter opened the same weekend as The Phantom Menace. That’s a horrible, boorish comparison, to say the least. But that’s where we seem to be headed, into a future in which so many are growing up to become disgruntled, corrupted, fundamentally broken, spiritually deformed gunslingers that the career track has become overcrowded and they’re now vying for public attention like some lethal breed of fame-starved pop idols. Soon they’ll have to start hiring black-market publicists to coordinate their outbursts with each other so none of them overlap and each shooter can have a chance to dominate the news cycle for a minimum number of hours before the next shooter steps up to the range.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 