When I was a little boy growing up, I used to think that women had the inside track on expressing love and receiving love.  Grown men seem so hard and unable to show their emotions as easily as women.  

Now that I'm a grown man, I have learned that although women may be in closer touch with their emotions, they do not have the inside track on love.  Although men definitely still need to be in touch with their emotions, I think women have lost their way to love due to modern social pressures.  Women deserve the right to their own autonomy with their lives and their bodies.

But when you look at the bright sides of more conservative cultures, it appears that both modern westernize men and women could learn a thing or two about "old, conservative customs".  There is a beauty - indeed a lost art to male and female exchanging their own ways of domination and submission without leaving guilt, abuse or damaged feelings in their wake.

We need to use old world and new world information to help build towards more honest, understanding and loving relationships.

Three Years

I'm just three years away from being a half century years old and certain things about male and female interaction still bewilder me...

We read and hear about how the male and female minds are so different.  How we see each other in relationships so differently.  Men do typical "male" things.  Women do typical "female" things.  We talk one way when we're with one another and yet we talk another way when we are around our own gender.  Monogamy may be dead in Western culture, but is it really a reality in other cultures around the world?  At some point everyone seems to want to justify taking an extra partner somewhere along the line?  Although we cannot be everything that we want to be for our partner...we also invest very little time exploring those areas that we could expand within us for our partner.

When you see two people really in love with one another it's a beautiful thing.  I don't just mean two people touching each other like two sexually uncontrollable teenagers.  I mean when two people can just be in the same room, and no where near one another and you can just feel the simmering heat coming off of the two of them towards each other.  When they touch it is so warm, gentle, bonded.  It's complete chemistry of the soul.  We all recognize it.  We all envy it.  But we think about it.  Probably women more than men.  But we all think about it at one point.  

That "it" is Love.  We all want it.  We all think about it.  Some of us want it a life time.  Some folks want it for just a minute and then race to someone else to fulfill that need again in some quick fashion.  And then they move on again.  Like Honey Bees flying to the next flower. 

When you think of the typical topics played on records are love songs.  But love is just like money.  Those that have it usually don't appreciate it enough; and those that appreciate it, usually don't have enough of it.  

Moody People

Thoughts on moody people...

Listen...I'm not one to stereotype women, but let's face it: they have a tremendous amount of daily, monthly and lifelong hormonal changes going on, such that most men never face.  They bear children, can experience postpartum hormonal changes even after even bearing children.  So just adding up the monthly issues, the child baring issues and even after birth issues...man, women sure do go through a lot.  Heck and sometime in their 40's...they go through yet another round of hormonal changes.  Having a mother and older sisters...and 3 daughters myself - I totally get that you have to give women a break and be more understanding when they get into bad moods.

However...what's the excuse for some men?  It may not be a large percentage of men who go through hourly and daily hormonal changes, but there has to be a definite percentage of men who do?  I'm basing this on the percentage of men that I've known throughout my 47 years of living.  Men who get into such fowl moods that you hate to work with them, or be around them.

I know a guy at work who binge smokes.  In other words, he quits smoking about once every 3 or 4 weeks - for the past 20 plus years!  The longer he goes without smoking...the worse his moods get.  All of us at work start chipping in to buy him a carton of cigarettes because of the foul moods he gets in.  I mean he really gets as irritating as he is as irritable.

Another guy I know also gets so moody, that some days after you just said hello to him and he's all smiling and chipper.   He walks away with a scowl or grimace and the next time you talk to him - it's like he just walked out of a funeral parlor.  By that point he's usually just complaining about this thing and that thing or that person so much that you just avoid talking to him.  You know if you stand there and talk for five minutes more he's going to send you into a depression.  

That reminds me of a neighbor of mine, who I used to speak to all the time, until I figured him out.  He hated New York.  He hated all the other neighbors (probably because they had learned to avoid him too).  He didn't like his car or his kids.  He couldn't wait to move south.  When he did move...to Pennsylvania...I heard he didn't like it there either.  Thankfully before he moved I learned to do Olympic sprints to my car, wave hello, and start my car all at the same time.  Now that he's gone, I'm not in as good of shape.  

Now about myself...yes...okay...I do have my own bad moods or even sad moods.  But my brain is so twisted, I do try to find some crazy humor in my situation to turn the bad mood thing around.  I mean...what else are you going to do?  I remember being in the hospital a couple of times in the past 20 years and having friends stop in to see me.  Their looks of concern and worry were soon changed by some crazy joke or humor that came into my mind during the moment.

So the moral of my own story is that if you ever come visit me in the hospital...no matter how injured I am...please do not come in sad.  Please come in and tell me a joke or share some humor with me...because life is just too short to be moody or sad.  And I can't stand moody or sad people.

Now tell me...how do you handle getting into bad moods?  Perhaps someone out there has a remedy that might help another person?  Let us know.  

JS

Thoughts from an out of towner...

While driving back home to NY from PA, I observed a Pennsylvanian couple riding a Harley at 65 mph...neither of them were wearing a helmet.  Now I know the slogan "When you ride, you decide" but somehow it just seemed just a little too casual approach to riding.  Not that I believe that riding a motorcycle with a helmet on at 65 mph is going to do much to save the rest of your body.  It just seemed like the principle of giving yourself some sort of chance to survive a tragic accident on the highway is kind of lost.

I cannot and do not want to give the impression of someone who is judging those people who choose to ride a motorcycle without a helmet.  That's not what this observation is about.  I'm simply emoting, and I'm empathizing to all my friends who ride (and people that I don't even know) that I hope you will reconsider taking all possible safety precautions when you ride.  Again, I don't know if a helmet will make much of a difference at 65 mph, but it sure might make the difference of an open or closed casket.

None of us know when we could be in an accident and I really don't want to seem judgmental.  I know that there are truly some things in life that are out of our control.  In the past two years I have had a friend/co-worker who was riding her motorcycle down in North Carolina get hit by another motorcyclist, who was intoxicated.  Road rash and one surgically repaired ankle later, she can talk about it (yes, she was wearing a helmet).  In addition, I had a friend, who while driving his car, was struck by another car driver (possibly intoxicated or asleep).  The other car crossed the double line on a highway and slammed into him head on. Both drivers were killed instantly.  So I do understand that there are some things out of our control.  I just think about the things that are in our control and thought that wearing a helmet, at least as slower speeds, could be one of them.

I would love to hear some feedback by people who do chose to ride without a helmet, as well as from folks that do ride with helmets.  And do us all a favor...talk from the heart...not from the head to keep from coming across as judgemental.  

JS

Thoughts from a sports parent...

I am a parent of just four kids whose ages range from 18 to 5.  I had to drive my second oldest child from Long Island, NY to PA.  As I was driving to our hotel, I realized that it was a hotel that we had been to before about 3 years ago.  It's funny how just one symbolic building brought back so many memories.  Then again the death of two childhood friends this week also brought back many memories from long ago.  It's amazing that in my short 47 years of living, how much has happened.

I remember seeing the first commercially available cellular phones, that people carried in hand.  The case was almost as big (and definitely more builky) as a case for a Macbook or large tablet.  Anyone watching the first "Lethal Weapon" movie can still see Danny Glover carrying such a cell phone from his car to have a private conversation with the police department's counselor.

Heck, you can even watch repeat episodes of "Miami Vice" and see how the American TV audience was introduced to the "first" car cell phones in 1984 (to be more accurate, I do recall watching police TV shows in the late '70's that used car/radio phones, very similar to what I believe would later become Vice's cell phone).  Either way, after my kid's team won the game and we went back to the hotel...I had a vision of seeing myself sitting at a campfire and talking to my grand kids about the history of cell phones.

Me: <spooky voice> "...We used to carry the battery for the phone...in a separate bag!" <watching the horrified faces of my grandchildren>
Me: "And...here's the scary part....even after we shrunk the phone and battery down to the size of a shoe...it still would only just make...phone calls!" <watching grandchildren jump up and run to their parents screaming and crying - away from grandpa>

Ah yes...time does move on.  And finally I have my first blog.  :-)

JS LES