New Day #339

Well, just 28 days to go. For those of you who are quick with figures, you're probably wondering why I'm planning on doing 367 New Things. I'm not being an overachiever--it's just that somewhere in the list I managed to screw up the numbers. Since I started on December 29th of last year, December 28 will complete my year of new things.

Fear not, I already have a new blog project planned for next year which I will reveal when the time comes.

In the meantime, I went letterboxing, which is kind of a lower-tech version of Geocaching. Participants hide boxes in parks and forests, each containing a journal and a signature rubber stamp. Following clues left on Your Friend and Mine the Interweb, one goes hunting for the boxes, stamping the result in your own journal and leaving your signature stamp in the box.

The practice began in 1858 in Dartmoor, England, where it remained a local tradition until Smithsonian magazine did an article about it ten years ago, sparking an international trend for rubber-stamp enthusiasts, a group of hobbyists I didn't know existed until 11 am this morning.

"It keeps us from getting OBD--Oregon Butt Disease," said Kuku, my enthusiastic guide.

"And gets rubber stampers out of the house," added Oregonian columnist Margie Boule', who came along because I didn't want to meet a stranger alone in a park. And in case Kuku lived up to her name.

Turns out I needn't have worried. It's hard to be intimidated by someone wearing a button reading "I heart handbells."

There are over 500 of these boxes hidden around Portland. The treasure hunt element is giddy fun and I appreciated getting the inside track, like how boxers wipe the excess ink from the pads on their socks because they're easier to clean and call non-boxers "noxers."

"Finding a letterbox is always a thrill," Kuku told us. "It's always new."

I understand the impulse.

Here's Margie with one of our finds:

New Day #338

Went to a dinner party tonight where the hostess asked me if I would light the tea lights. Which are in those votive cups, so you need a long match or lighter. Which we didn't have. Necessity being the mother of invention, I discovered that a pencil works almost as well.

The truly ridiculous thing about this project is that these little diversions truly make my day.

New Day #337

Went to the VIP Room of Sassy's, a hipster strip club. Yes, female strippers. With tattoos. And ironic eyewear. And, according to legend, one who was lactating.

I went as the guest of rocker Storm Large, who, naturally, knew a tattooed, fauxhawked stripper named Malice.

Malice put on an amazing show, leaping off the bar right onto the pole. Which is better than the dancer who slapped her ass so absent-mindedly Storm said she looked like she killing a bug.

All this and more as part of my research for a future project.

Really.

I couldn't take pictures, so here's a shot Storm kinda looking like a stripper.

New Day #336

While I was getting my oil changed the other day, the mechanic pointed out that my battery was corroded and that I could get rid of it with Coca-Cola. Not by drinking it, mind you, but by pouring it on the battery.

It worked.





More importantly, it worked in front of my godchildren, causing them to decide on the spot they would never drink a beverage that's capable of removing battery acid.

Here are some other reasons.

New Day #335

At the invitation of Joanna "Random Acts of Cupcake" Milner, I got to take a tour of the Franz Bakery factory.

It took a lot of doing on her part, as the factory mostly tours school groups. Since we were just a giddy assemblage of carbohydrate enthusiasts (including Oregonian sports writer Rachel Bachman) Joanna named us the "Yeast Affection."


In addition to the stylish headgear, we had to either remove or cover all jewelry with masking tape, lest it land in the dough, which resulted in this fashion statement from Floyd:


All of us totally geeked out on the various conveyors, mixers and mechanisms that even tie the bread bag closed. As I watched the equipment in awe, all I could think of was the Looney Tunes assembly line music. From the time the ingredients are mixed in a truly hilarious Rube Goldberg machine, a loaf of bread travels 1 & 3/4 miles before it's put into the truck. "It's on-the-go dough," said our tour guide, who turned out to be Becky Cartier, an old friend of Floyd's with whom he'd lost touch.

Becky kept the fun facts coming--like how the Portland factory alone goes through five million pounds (that's 2,500 tons) of flour a week, producing 1.3 million buns (mostly for fast-food restaurants) and 88,000 loaves of bread. They do so by keeping the factory operating 24/7, baking in an 38-tray oven 100 feet long.

I found the experience oddly inspiring, marveling at the round-the-clock effort. "This is what it takes," I thought, "to accomplish something big."

New Day #334

I've never been one of those people who dresses up his dog. For starters, I'm very leery of the whole pet-as-baby thing, afraid that I could become someone who's more comfortable with animals than people, like Prince Philip. What's more, I kind of feel sorry for the pets, who didn't ask to look ridiculous.

But this is a Year of New Things and who am I to judge that which I haven't tried? So, in honor of yesterday's visit to the cross-dressing mayor of Silverton, Oregon, I bought Sherman the Wonder Dog his first skirt.



Yeah, it didn't really fit, so I turned it into a cape instead.



I've gotta admit, it didn't change my opinion of dressing up animals like people. In fact, I still much prefer that people get naked like animals.

New Day #333

Having finally opened my show, finished teaching and submitted the first ten chapters of my next book, what I really wanted to do today was sleep in and watch old movies all day. But then my friend Fran from the Seattle Mystery Bookshop alerted me that representatives from hatemonger Fred Phelps's church in Kansas were coming to Oregon to protest, among other things, the queer resource center at Portland State, the Swedish and Finnish consulates (don't ask) and little Silverton, Oregon, which recently made history when it elected the first transgendered mayor in the United States, a cross-dresser with breast implants named Stu Rasmussen. The e-mail alert also requested that counter-protesters wear dresses in support of Stu.

I figured I could sleep when I'm dead.

I was sincerely hoping to see a whole town of people in skirts--an "I am Spartacus" moment--but most dressed for the cold, including Stu himself:



But the outfit did land me in the Oregonian for the sixth time in seven days, which is just one less than Garfield.

More importantly, over a hundred people came out--



--angry grandparents, high school students who cut class, and this pair who expressed their opinion of Phelps's views by eating green oatmeal, then swallowing Ipecac to induce vomiting.



Disgusting, I know, but not nearly as gross as the four protesters:



It was distressing that they were so young, but 60 out of Phelps's 70 followers are related to him. So I got to see for myself what happens when cousins marry.

And, yes, those are American flags they're standing on.

New Day #332

Went shopping for new slippers at Target today and decided to use the little scooter.

This is not the first time I've experimented with a disability. For those of you who haven't been following all year, there was Fun with Blindness Day, and my Wheelchair Date and One Armed Man Day.

Still, it amazed me how quickly using the cart changed how I thought about myself. Every time I got out of it, I felt compelled to limp. But maybe that's because I didn't want people to think I wasn't disabled. It occurred to me afterwards that perhaps I was keeping some deserving disabled person from shopping, which made me feel like a Class-A Asshole.

That said, the slow-moving made for a very relaxing shopping experience, except when I backed up and I beeped like a garbage truck.

In other news, the Oregonian loved Holidazed. Bowels are once again moving.

Here's the review, which sounds like it was written by my mother. Knowing my mother, I wouldn't be surprised. In actual fact, it was written by one Michael McGregor, who is obviously brilliant, handsome and well-hung.

When a theater company advertises an original production with that lofty term "world premiere," what appears onstage is usually a work-in-progress. But "Holidazed," the new play by Marc Acito and C.S. Whitcomb debuting at Artists Repertory Theatre, is that rarest of pleasures: a fresh creation as well formed and finely tuned as an old favorite.

No doubt, a favorite is what it's destined to be. It has all the requisite ingredients: humor, a family-oriented story, a questioning of the trappings that obscure the season's true meaning, and the triumph of peace and goodwill.

It has something else as well: a premiere staging by a superb cast and a talented director with an intuitive feeling for the material.

Susannah Mars shines at the story's center as Julia, a typical suburban mother trying to survive a mother's many holiday duties. This year seems like any other until she gives a bag of Halloween candy to a homeless girl. When the girl asks her name, a random act of kindness becomes a personal encounter, prompting Julia to take her home for the night.

The invitation breaks Julia's conventional life wide open. Not only is the girl, Luna, a runaway and a pagan, she has a homeless boyfriend and a street thug harasser. The chaos they bring to the family's tightly scripted routine make redemptive revisions possible.

As played by Ana Reiselman, Luna makes a wonderful catalyst for change. Sassy but loving, tough but fragile, she is first and foremost a human being, deserving of love and dignity. While paganism may seem strange in a holiday play, Luna's knowledge of it strips away the family's illusions about where their supposedly Christian traditions began, opening their eyes to simpler truths.

This might not sound especially funny, but Acito and Whitcomb milk every situation. Just for good measure, they give Julia a feminist mother who speaks from the grave and two gay friends who pepper the show with bawdy humor. (Family-oriented doesn't necessarily mean family-friendly.)

Todd Van Voris and Michael Mendelson are hilarious as the campy couple and an assortment of other characters. Mendelson dons a platinum wig to portray Julia's prudishly perfect sister-in-law, for example, and Van Voris stops the show as a tipsy grandma disrupting a hilariously ruined Thanksgiving dinner with rantings about terrorists. (Damon Kupper, who plays Julia?s staid husband, Scott, adds a wonderfully funny second performance, too?as an immigrant clerk who mistakes Julia for a homeless person.)

Director Jon Kretzu combines a crisp pace with an easy rhythm to blend humor naturally with deeper meaning. He draws fine performances from the young actors who play Julia's three children and Luna's boyfriend as well, and makes excellent use of both Jeff Seats' supple three-tiered stage and Jeff Forbes' smart space-defining lighting.

"Holidazed" does more than recognize and transcend the holidays' usual attributes -- family squabbles, overburdened mothers, and guilt feelings when you see the needy. It manages to be inclusive while reaffirming traditional values too. And that's an especially deft trick.

New Day #331

I'm not even sure how to define today's New Thing. All I can say is that is one of the most exciting things ever to happen to me as a writer.

Today's Oregonian reported on Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, a University of Oregon senior and environmental activist who spent three and a half days up a tree this week to protest logging and raise awareness of global warming. And what did she do to fill the time?

She read How I Paid for College.

You'll rarely find me at a loss for words, but this is one of those times.

New Day #330

It's hard to adequately express just how much the opening of my first professional play means to me. Not only was it the resurrection of a stillborn novel, a redemption of what felt like an immense failure, it also signaled a returned to the scene of another personal failure--the theater, where I struggled first as an actor then as an opera singer.

I'm pleased to report that the opening was a smash with the audience, though I spent most of the night making myself crazy watching the critics. More importantly, in lieu of opening night gifts, the cast and crew as well as the audience joined together to raise $700 to feed homeless youth at Outside In.

But I promised myself I wouldn't treat it as a New Thing because I've blogged about it three times already: when I sold it, when I started rehearsals and when my name appeared on a Tri-met bus.
I knew I needed to do something to make the day new.

So I wore women's underwear.

I thought this would make me feel giddily subversive and slightly fetishistic as I moved through the opening night ritual while secretly wearing silky lavender panties with bows that I bought for three bucks at Ross Cross-Dress for Less.

Yeah, not so much.

What surprised me was how not strange they felt. As someone who has squeezed himself into briefs after a weight gain, the spillage issues were not unfamiliar. (And before you tell me to try a thong--been there, loved it.)

That said, even though I've posted naked pictures of myself in the past, I'm not willing to have myself splashed all over Your Friend and Mine the Interweb in women's underwear.

Apparently, there are some things even I'm not willing to do for a laugh.

New Day #329

At the suggestion of the funny, smart and self-described "unappealing" Courtenay Hameister, I decided to write a sonnet. Because apparently she's the kind of person who sits around reading sonnets. Or at least sits around telling other people to write them.

Never having written one myself, I had to turn to Your Friend and Mine the Inter-Web to remind myself that an English sonnet is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, meaning five stressed syllables (alternated with five mellow, relaxed syllables.)

Since so much of my attention has been on the world premiere of my first play HOLIDAZED, I was inspired to pay tribute to our troupe of truly outstanding actors.



Ode to the Actors

You ride the laughter like it was a wave,
Yet live inside the world that is the play.
Like errant knights who must be bold and brave
You make the giant blackened beast your prey.

I revel in the wonder of your craft,
The way emotion bubbles like a spring
And makes me weep as much as I have laughed
And sets my heart to dance a highland fling.

To watch you listen, see you hear, is bliss.
And bliss it is to listen and to hear
The words I dream’d, the dream I had exists,
A living creature crossing a frontier.

I thank you, actors, for your artistry
And for the precious gift you’ve given me.

New Day #328

One of the most gratifying parts of being a writer is making an impact on the lives of strangers. I've had readers tell me my books have cheered them while they were undergoing chemo, radiation, and, once, while passing a kidney stone. My work has brought together at least two couples that I know of and has given hope to misfits everywhere. I also get the occasional angry letter for my supposed misogyny, racism or homophobia. But I've never been threatened.

Welcome to New Thing #328.

It started with the Oregonian running my account of going to the
Blazers game side by side with sports writer Ryan White's story about me taking him to the opera.

I'll admit it was very exciting--a big spread on the front page of the Living section--or as the O calls it, How We Live. (As opposed to How We News or How We Metro.) Then I got a blog comment. And a Facebook message. And an e-mail. All from the same irate mother of a Blazer dancer:

"What no time to slam the Blazer Dancers on your blog? Or just saving that particular brand of sexism for the Oregonian? I am still seething at your characterization (or more aptly, character assassination) of the dancers as talentless, brainless and of ill-repute. Don't make assumptions about other's based on your ill informed and biased views of women."

Okay, here's what I actually wrote in the Oregonian:

"While I’m sure the Blazers Dancers are all wholesome women with unblemished reputations, between the knee-high boots and booty shorts all that was missing was a stripper pole."

I've wrestled the line to the ground a few times since. For starters, I do feel bad for the Blazer dancers. They obviously work very hard and apparently are paid next to nothing. So I deliberately put the qualifier about the women being wholesome because I figured some, if not many, could be. At the same time, though, the line reads ironically because the dancers dress and move in a way that would, in a different setting, cause men to put dollar bills on the bar. I understand that there's a distinctly 21st century disconnect on this issue--that a gyrating, scantily clad pop star, for instance, could truthfully proclaim she's a virgin. But, as someone who has behaved sluttishly in public myself, I can understand if someone would assume it's a reflection of my personal life. In fact, at 42 years old, I welcome it.

The whole affair wouldn't even warrant a mention if the irate mom hadn't written the following:

"I am busy urging my husband and my daughter's husband to seek you out and defend her honor."

How was I supposed to interpret this? I don't know this woman. It's entirely possible that her husband or her daughter's husband are the kind of hotheads who get into bar fights. What's more, all I could think about was that Texas cheerleader mom who hired a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter's rival.

So I called my neighbor the cop.

"I'm glad you called," he said. "I've been meaning to tell you--lately your blog has gotten kinda weak."

Everyone's a critic.

"Okay," I said, "how's this for something new..."

He agreed that words like "seek you out" and "defend her honor" constituted a credible threat. I mean, what else could they mean? These guys are going to come over and challenge me to a game of chess?

Luckily, when I informed the irate mom of my intentions, she backed down, accusing me of misinterpreting her words and taking the opportunity to tell me that my sexist comments were the kind used to justify rape. Followed by her work e-mail signature: "If you know anyone buying or selling a home, I'd appreciate the referral!"

That's my favorite part.

So, dear cyber-friends, I leave the last word to you. Here are the Blazer dancers:




What do YOU think?

New Day #327

Today I did something I've always wanted to do. I studied speed reading. First I took a couple of classes on the You Tube with this guy who appears to be teaching in his basement:

God, how I love the Inter-web.

Then I took this totally fun test, which I highly recommend for wasting time at work.

In case you're interested, I read 500 words a minute with 80% comprehension.

I'd like to improve that. With the amount of tasks I try to cram into one day, I go to bed each night feeling like that morning was three days ago. If I can keep my inbox to fifty unanswered e-mails, it's a good day. At any given moment, I have twenty books out from the library and a ten inch pile of papers to sort. And still I surge ahead, rarely saying "no" to any opportunity.

After all, it's very possible that my life is already half over. I figure I can sleep all I want when I'm dead.

Yet Another Hair Update

Three bleaches and one toning and I'm finally blonder than Storm Large, my role model in audacity.


And, for the record, no, I'm not bleaching the eyebrows because it's kinda punk. It'll look more normal once the roots grow back in.

New Day #326

Was in a mild state of panic today because I spent most of my time working on changes to HOLIDAZED, which opens Friday.

So I wasn't sure how I was going to squeeze in something new. But then Floyd asked if I had time to help clean the gutters. Once up on the roof, he suggested we go clockwise rather than counter-clockwise, as is our usual custom for the last eighteen years.

Talk about a rut.

Still, it felt a little lame as a New Thing. So when it came time to move on to the garage I didn't descend the ladder and move it as I normally do, but instead decided to leap from one roof to the other. This isn't as risky as it sounds. The roofs are flat and maybe four feet apart, but I've never done it before as it seemed needlessly reckless. I mean, suppose I caught my foot on the gutter and went hurtling face first onto the pavement? That would suck.

So my heart actually fluttered in my chest as I prepared to take a running leap. In a way, this little moment represents so much of what I've tried to do all year. To take a little risk in the course of a mundane task. To infuse an otherwise ordinary day with a sense of adventure.

New Day #325

Remember all those plastic bags I couldn't recycle, so I learned to fold them properly? Well it turns out I can recycle them here, as well as old shoes.

Okay, I realize that's not an especially exciting new thing, but I had two twelve hour days at the theater this weekend.

New Day #324

On my ongoing list of New Things to do has been this charmer: "Lick Slug." Apparently, it'll numb your tongue and I'm curious--and not a little afraid--to try. Luckily, it's been a dry autumn so I've been able to put this one off.

But it's been raining lately and I came home tonight to find one waiting right on the back door. With immense reluctance and no small amount of shivery aversion, I reached down and picked up the shell-less snail.

And that's when I realized it--I've never touched a slug before. Any time I've ever had to move one, I've always shoved it aside with a stick or a leaf. What a sheltered and fearful life I've led.

It's ridiculous. I like to think of myself as a wacky free spirit and yet there's a host of things I avoid due to fear of the unknown. So, reminding myself that I've held both a python and a tarantula, I placed the squirmy slimer in my hand. It felt like a slimy noodle.

And I wondered what it will take for me to be as bold and adventuresome as I'd like to be. That's essentially what this project has been about: to push past the boundaries of my life.

That said, ever practical, I decided to hold off licking the slug. Because that's another New Thing.

Stay tuned.

Hair Update

Am making progress toward platinum. Here I am with my hair stylist, Paulino Borja.


And, yes, I know it looks weird, but it's just for fun.

New Day #323

Here's an instance where I don't mind being in the back of a bus.
Hard to read, I know, but that's indeed my name on there.

New Day #322

My charming website, marcacito.com, got hacked today. It was okay if you typed it into Google, but if you clicked on the link it took you to some anti-virus site, which is the definition of irony.

Of course, it begged the question of how you fix it. I mean, it seemed to be a Google problem, but how do you contact Google? Do you google "Google?"

FYI, I tried it and it just brings you back to a blank Google page, a totally existential moment.

So we called our host, which proved as gracious as it sounds. And by we, I mean my boyfriend, the Long-Suffering Floyd. Thank you, punkin. Without you, I'd probably be carving my books in stone tablets.

Also, I must give a heartfelt thanks to reader Richard Belcham in the UK for alerting me to the problem. Richard, you're my hero. How 21st century is it to have someone you've never met in England let you know your website's not working?

If anyone else has a recommendation for anti-spyware, I'd appreciate it.

New Day #321

I’ve never felt entirely safe in the world. As a gay guy, the fear of being gay bashed always lingers and with it, the knowledge that I don’t know how to defend myself. So I was especially grateful when my buddy McKinley offered to teach me self-defense.

McKinley is fierce. A singer-songwriter with the band Dirty Martini, she's also the writer and composer of GRACIE AND THE ATOM, a new musical which I predict will be the next SPRING AWAKENING. Oh, yeah, and she's an engineer. And the host of a new pilot for the Discovery channel. And smokin' hot.

So I wasn't surprised that she knew self-defense. I mean, is there anything this woman can't do? What surprised me was how counter-intuitive it is. For instance: a guy comes at you with a club, get as close as you can because he can't swing it at you. Or falling on the ground in front of a guy with a knife because you can kick him and the worst thing that'll happen is a gash to the leg, rather than the abdomen.

I walked away feeling totally empowered and ready to beat the crap out of somebody.

Here's a tiny excerpt from my favorite song from GRACIE, which is, incidentally, the night McKinley and I met.

New Day #320

I’ve completely lost interest in the gym. I’m not averse to exercise—I just don’t want to do it at the gym. So today I climbed Portland’s tallest building, the U.S. Bank Tower, otherwise known as Big Pink.

I figured I was up for it, having climbed the Empire State Building, which is twice as tall. Of course, that was on a stairmaster.

I felt really illicit sneaking into the stairwell, as if there were something subversive about not taking an elevator. Also because it's a bank building and probably isn't the kind of environment that welcomes strangers exercising in the stairwell.

Ten floors and I was hot and winded. Twenty, I wanted to kill myself. Thirty, I wanted to kill someone else. Forty, I was done.

Unfortunately, there are forty-three floors. But I’m very determined. So I finished it, walked back down, relieved that one of the constraints of this project is that I don’t have time to do anything twice.

I've heard said that you can tell a lot about a society's values by which building is the tallest. In the past, it was the church. Now it's financial services. Just once I'd love to see it be a library.

PS Sorry for the delayed posting. I'm revising my writing schedule and haven't quite budgeted in blogging.

New Day #319

With the help of the aptly named Storm Large, I finally found out for myself whether blondes have more fun.

They do.

First Storm applied a product called Radical Bleach



Then used the extra on her own roots.



We waited an hour, allowing a look at what Storm's man Davey called "ass boobs."



And here I am--a demi-blond.



I had no idea this would be so much fun and decided instantly that coloring my hair will be my new hobby. But I have to give my scalp a rest for a few days before I do another round to achieve that platinum Billy Idol look I'm going for.

New Day #318

Today I was cupcaked. Quite appropriately, it was at the Wordstock Festival that I was verbed by a noun. This "random act of cupcake" came from two strangers named Joanna and Laurie as part of their mission "to take over the world, one cupcake at a time."

It does my heart good to know there are people in the world like them. I just wish I'd thought to take a picture. They looked something like this:
The cupcakes, I mean. Not Joanna and Laurie.

New Day #317

So I'm in the grocery store and I see this guy in a Blazer jersey, or what I like to think of as a Blazer blouse. The blouse says "7 Roy" and--now that I'm a sports fan, I know that it refers to Brandon Roy, who scored the winning shot in the final .8 seconds in overtime.

Which motivated me to walk up to this guy and utter a sentence that has never once passed my lips: "That was some game last night, huh?"

That's right, I actually talked sports. What's more, I can't stop. Suddenly I have something to discuss with heterosexual men. It's so liberating. No wonder straight guys do it. No need to discuss your feelings or your appearance or how your empty life is a massive disappointment to you. You can simply focus on the superhuman achievement of others, relishing their success as if it were your own.

I'm hooked.

New Day #316

Got to see myself profiled on Oregon Art Beat, where they actually filmed me in my pajamas in bed. Click here to watch the segment. I'm relieved to report I didn't make a complete ass of myself.

New Day #315

Together with my friend Whitey, sports columnist for the Oregonian, I participated in a Writer Exchange Program in which I took him to his first opera, Portland Opera's idyllic and inspiring production of FIDELIO, and he took me to my first basketball game, played by the Portland Trailblazers.

I'm not going to report much now, as I can't scoop myself. I'll post the link next week when our side-by-side accounts appear in the Oregonian.

In the meantime, here are the writers hard at work:

And moments after a truly stunning turnaround when Brandon Roy won the game by scoring a three-point shot from thirty feet away with just 8/10 of a second left to go in overtime.

And, yes, I'm proud to say I now know exactly what that means.

PS Note the orb over my left shoulder. Is it possible it's the Ghost of the Masonic Temple?

New Day #314

Paid my first visit to a urologist. At the risk of oversharing, suffice it to say I needed to attend to some indoor plumbing.

What a strange job, urology. I mean, this poor man had to give me a prostate exam so conclusive he was like a homeless guy searching a pay phone for change.

I learned something new, as well. If, while Roto-Rootering you (meaning me) the doctor presses firrrrrrrmly on your prostate (meaning mine), he can make you urinate against your will. Just like pressing the button on a water fountain.

I'll spare you a photo.

New Day #313

Okay, that's it, Obama just took Ohio and I'm ready to lose my liberal anxiety. Today's New Thing: I'm first in the nation to call the election and declare Barack Obama the next president of the United States.

There are so many reasons to be relieved, like the nightmare of the past eight years is finally over and the U.S. can once again look the rest of the world in the eye. Chief among them today for me, however, is that I'm home in bed with a cold and unable to do much of anything, let alone something new. Luckily, history got made today, so I'm covered.

Rapper Jay-Z put it best:

"Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama ran so we can all fly."

New Day #312

Today I tried those push-ups where you clap in between, as if you were applauding yourself. It never occurred to me I could do them, but I did something similar when I shadow-boxed, and I thought I'd give it a try.

I was amazed to discover I could sixteen. I suppose I shouldn't be amazed--I've done enough push-ups in my life--but I still tend to think of myself as the doughy kid who had to do them on his knees (aka "puss-ups").

Thus inspired, I tried the one-armed push-up.

Yeah, not so much.

New Day #311

I shaved my armpits. For no other reason than I've never done it before.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Have got to admit I like the way it looks more than the way it feels, which is rather raw and itchy.

New Day #310

Tried shadow boxing today. I wasn’t any good, but I liked it. That is, until we got to the jump rope portion, which set off a childhood-oh-my-God-I’m-hopelessly-uncoordinated trauma. However, to my immense relief, it turned out I could kinda do it, which then set off a middle-age-oh-my-God-I’m-hopelessly-winded trauma.

Progress, not perfection, I guess.