With Friends Like These

"No man is poor who has friends," - from It's a Wonderful Life

This weekend My Director and I attended my 20th high school reunion. Amazing that two decades have passed since high school. We were driving to the reunion and she noticed I was quiet. "Are you nervous?" She asked. "No. I'm just...I find this...surreal. I can't believe we're driving to my 20th reunion. Isn't that crazy?" She agreed. Aging is a wonderful, mysterious, inevitable, frightening thing. I also felt excited. To see all the guys again. There are maybe two times a year where we're all together. I don't care what were doing as long as we're all there. It's always a good time. Always brings back happy memories, and always creates new ones.

On our way home, My Director said how great it was that all of my friends had made it. And that we took this great picture together:

We're very handsome. And very plaid.

I am who I am today thanks to a lot of people - my parents, My Director, Peanut - but these guys have been just as instrumental in making me me. (So they have themselves to blame.) And to quote my mother-in-law, of all people, "You can tell a lot about a person by who their friends are." Well, then I must be one hell of an amazing guy. Not because I have friends, but because of who they are. I'm so proud of my friends. For their successes in life and love. But more, for their success in friendship. 

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The Newlywed Game

"I love you more today than yesterday; but not as much as tomorrow." -From the song by Spiral Staircase, which I quoted in my wedding vows. 

When does the so-called "honeymoon period" really end? Some say as quickly as three months. I've always gone with two years. That is, after all, when you're no longer a newlywed according to the genius creators of the classic game show The Newlywed Game. If you remember, couples were only eligible to appear on the show to answer questions about where they "make whoopee" if they had been married for two years or less.

Bob Eubanks was a master

Well, I'm here to debunk the myth and rewrite the record books. You're still a newlywed for much longer than two years. (Assuming you're still married, of course.) You can return from your honeymoon, buy a home, change jobs, get a dog, and have a baby. You can gain all the weight back that you lost to look good in your wedding pictures. You're still a newlywed. So what milestone marks the beginning of your life as an oldywed?

When you have to start replacing the gifts you received for your wedding.

That's right. Over the past few months, My Director and I have had to let go of and replace some of the items we were so excited to scan with that little radar gun in the aisles of Macy's and Crate & Barrel ten years ago. Ten years. We will celebrate a decade of marriage in December. I still feel young and in love. I love My Director just as much if not more than I did that chilly December day we said our vows in Pennsylvania.

Sadly, however, we are no longer newlyweds. All because we have bright new fluffy bath towels. All because we've replaced our pots and pans, the ones with the poisonous peeling Teflon, with new stainless steel ones. Somehow our original silverware started disappearing. Forks and spoons mysteriously escaping like wayward socks. The last straw? Our toaster oven stopped toasting. How depressing:

Goodbye, old friend

I'll remember the toaster oven fondly. The bagels, the waffles, the tuna melts. Good times. The honeymoon may be over. But the love is still hot as ever.

I get a bit more nostalgic when it comes to getting rid of Peanut's things. Like I did with the stroller here.

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Sunroof to My Soul

“Too much knowledge makes the head bald.” – Russian proverb


I am about to address the third rail of blog topics. For me at least. I've touched on politics. Once. I've even mentioned religion from time to time. But never before have I discussed this. It's a serious topic for me. So just know that as you read on, you are witnessing and participating in a groundbreaking, earth-shattering, never-before-seen moment on DKL.

Mainly because I was in denial, and mostly unaware. I was ignoring the obvious and inevitable. But I am ready to talk about it now. So here goes... I am losing my hair.

There. I said it.

Yes, I am going bald. Until recently, I really had no idea how bad it was. That the top of my head looks liked a patch of burned grass that got too much sun during a heatwave. How could I know? I NEVER look up there. Denial.

I had my awakening after we had a family photo shoot in Central Park with a professional photographer. I'd never seen pictures of the top of my head until he emailed us the link with the proofs and saw this:

When the hell did that happen?! And why didn't this photographer try to get better shots of me... with hair? He couldn't shoot my good side?! (I kid, of course. The photographer was great.)

I remember watching some home movies a few years ago and a guy came into the shot. His back was to the camera but you could plainly see he had the start of what eventually would become a bald spot on his skull. Just a little dollop of nothingness. "Who's that guy who's going bald?" I mocked. HOLY CRAP IT WAS ME. And that was at least seven years ago.

My how far we've come....

In times like this, I find solace in the Peanut's perspective even though My Director has told me she thinks bald is sexy. (What else is she going to say?) The Peanut knows no different, actually. To her, I've always been this way. When she was a baby, no older than two years old, we were wrestling around on the floor. Toddler Peanut climbed on my back. I felt her stop. I felt her thinking. I felt her tiny finger tapping on top of my head.

"Daddy, why is there no hair right there?"

"Well some boys' brains keep growing even when they get big. And when their brains grow so much it pushes the hair out of the top of their head. Daddy is so smart, he's losing his hair up there to make room for his big brain." (I thought that was pretty clever off the top of my head - pun intended.)

Peanut thought for a moment then said dismissively, "That's silly, daddy."

It is silly to worry about these things. My dad was bald. Both grandfathers. My brother. Most of my first cousins. It's apparently a thing in my family. So I must accept it. But I won't go down without a fight:

$30 for a 4-month supply of the generic at Costco

If (when) I reach that hideous "hair island" stage by the time I turn 40 (three years from now), we're having a head-shaving party. Then again, My Director says I won't look good shaved because I "have a funny-shaped head." Nice. Another thing to worry about that I can't control.

I went through a similar awakening when I started wearing eyeglasses almost three years ago.

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I Can See Clearly Now

"I like that I get to grow old with you." - My wife, comforting me as I was coming to grips with the fact that I need glasses.

I'm getting old.

For the first time in my life, I'm saying that, and I truly feel it. I believe it. Reality has finally set in.

Why?

Because I now need glasses. I now have glasses. I now wear glasses. You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?

The Peanut will see me in pictures from the points in her life up until now, and say "Look at how long ago this was. Dad didn't even have his glasses yet." Long ago, I resigned myself to the fact that she'll say "Look at how much hair dad used to have." For some reason my hair loss doesn't make me feel old. But the glasses do. Maybe because I've been losing hair since college.

I understand that a lot of people start wearing eyeglasses when they're children. But that's genetics. For the first time, my age is causing a problem. A breakdown. A disability, if you will. Most recently, you might as well call me Grandpa when I was driving at night. Do you know how many turns I've missed because I couldn't read the street signs in time? Yes, a sign of the times indeed. A car ride with me behind the wheel had more twists and turns than The DaVinci Code.

I thought I was in my prime. What happened to my prime? I still feel "primey." Don't I look primey?

It all started one football Sunday when I was sitting in my chair in the back of the den, and I couldn't read the scores and stats that scroll at the bottom of the screen. I grew angry thinking there was something wrong with the large television hanging on the wall. Nope. Picture perfect. Operator error.

Perhaps I am overreacting. There are people who have more serious problems - health and otherwise - than I have.

We were filling the prescription, and Peanut thought nothing of it. When I was trying on frames, she said, "Daddy glasses" and countinued to run around the store like a chicken trying to avoid capture by a hungry farmer. I guess she's used to it since my wife wears them. My wife isn't getting old, though. She's been wearing glasses since childhood. Simply put, the woman is one step above a bat on the blindness scale. Once again, genetics. I, on the other hand, require glasses to see anything past the length of my arm because of my glacially advancing age.

But my daughter took it in stride. She's growing up, which inevitably means I'm growing old. No big deal, she seems to think. That's life. Enjoy it while it lasts. I've seen a lot up until now. Now I will watch my daughter grow up... through corrective lenses.

Leave it to a two year-old to open my eyes and allow me to see what really matters.

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