Karma’s a Bitch

karma1I believe in Karma.  I believe good things happen to good people and bad people fry in Hell.  I believe everyone gets what they deserve (sometimes that scares me) and even though it rains on the just and the unjust alike, the just usually get an umbrella.  This isn’t merely rose-coloured Pollyanna pie-in-the-sky optimism; it’s real.  I’ve proven it hundreds of times over a lifetime of experience.  Let me tell you a story:

When I was seven, I liked Brenda What’s-her-name and I thought she liked me.  She didn’t.  She liked my lunch (my oatmeal chocolate cookies, actually.)  Somehow (memory fails me) I eventually realized this and, broken hearted, quit sharing my bounty with the woman of my dreams.  This would have been just another love lesson learned except Brenda turned out to be a vindictive bitch, even at seven.  She found herself another boyfriend who was one year older, 5 kilos heavier and skilled in the art of punching people out.  In the messy divorce, Brenda and her bloodthirsty boyfriend demanded custody of my cookies, and after a couple of nasty altercations, I came around to their point of view on the benefits of sharing.  Again, a love lesson learned. However, I was not prepared to go cookie-less for the rest of my life.  So, rather than getting my ass kicked every day and losing my cookies anyway, or just meekly handing over them without a fight, I devised a cunning plan.  For the rest of the year, every morning on the way to school, I stopped at a park bench in front of City Hall, sat down, rain or shine, and ate my cookies.  One little boy finding his own way in an unfair world.  It wasn’t too long before my personal Bonnie and Clyde figured out they weren’t getting any more cookies, and after a month or so, I began to appreciate the intrinsic value of solitude.  Time on, we all went our separate ways: I moved to the West Coast and I assumed Brenda and the boyfriend (I think his name was Genghis or Attila) both died, face-down in a ditch somewhere.

Fast forward some 30 plus years.

I was at a house party back in my hometown, and an old friend introduced me to a woman,
“You remember Brenda?” he said.
In actual fact, I didn’t.  However, Brenda turned out to be an intelligent, witty high school teacher who was married to one of the funniest Agro-engineers I’ve ever run across.  She clearly remembered me, and we were all having such a good time that I figured I’d just fake it and we ended up spending most of the evening together.  At some point, handsome husband disappeared and Brenda turned to me and, with a hint of remorse in her voice, said, “Does your mom still make those oatmeal chocolate cookies?”  Ding dong!  All the lights went on, and even though I hadn’t thought about Brenda in over 25 years, suddenly there she was: the same little girl who’d strong-armed me out of my cookies, and she looked genuinely sorry.
“Yeah,” I said, “She does.”
“You know, I’ve never ever tasted cookies as good as those ones.  I wish I could learn to bake something that good.” And I could hear she meant it as some sort of a backwards-reaching apology.
I should have said something, but I didn’t.  I just looked at her, directly into her, into her soul. And she let me — and over in the corner where we all keep our various bags of guilt, she had one with my name on it.  I could see it in her eyes, and for a nanosecond, we both knew it.  I could have fixed it for her. I should have fixed it for her.  But I didn’t.  Instead, I said, “No, people like you aren’t capable of things like that.”
Then, I stood up and went outside for a cigarette.  When I got back, Brenda and handsome husband were gone.

And what’s the moral of the story?  Brenda may still be dragging around a bag of guilt with my name on it.  Too bad — she deserves it.  The problem is the sins of a child are different from the sins of an adult and ever since that house party, I’ve been carrying around a bag that says “Brenda.”  One of these days, Karma’s going to catch up with me.

50 is a Biggie!

cindyCindy Crawford is 50.  I remember when Cindy was — OMG! — she still is.  To say the gods have been good to Cindy Crawford is like sayin’ John Dillinger robbed banks.  Yeah, she’s had some work done — big deal!  In an age when image is everything, this woman is the poster child for Wow!  And, to seal the deal, she’s worth north of 100 million dollars.  Anyway, Cindy Crawford is 50, and she’s decided to retire — or at least not model for money anymore.

Despite all the age-is-only-a-number bullshit that old people try to pull to feel good about themselves, 50 is still The Biggie.  It marks a distinct change in life and attitude.  I would not presume to give aging advice to Cindy Crawford, but for mere mortals, here are a few things you can expect when you hit the big Five-O.  (For those of us who are looking at 50 in the rear-view mirror, think of this as a stroll down memory lane.)

1 — You rediscover all the stuff you thought you couldn’t live without in your 20s and 30s and get rid of it.  Things like the soup tureen, that brass thing from Mexico, 24/7 house cleaning, punitive underwear, the whiny kid who thinks parent is spelt s-l-a-v-e and sometimes even that old thing on the sofa that’s been making your life miserable for years.

2 — Your clothes start to shrink.

3 — You start to make noises like your parents.  These aren’t words or opinions — just noises — like when you get up in the morning or bend down.

4 — Your body hair begins to resemble the fur on a badger.  The hair in your nose, ears, eyebrows and other places starts to regenerate overnight and have a wiry will of its own, sproinging off in all directions.

5 — The people on TV all start to look the same.

6 — Sex is way simpler.  First of all, you don’t have to wear uncomfortable clothes to get laid — sweats will do.  There are no Consent Forms (in triplicate) no medical history, no Vaccination Certificates, no birth control paraphernalia.  It’s all very straightforward.
“I’m horny.”
“Me too.”
“Ya wanna?”
“Yeah!”
“Meet ya behind the salad bar.”

7 — The six second delay between your mind and your mouth disappears.

8 — Everything under three feet tall appears to be unbelievably cute — kittens, pandas, Disney Princesses, ugly babies, — even those stupid little dogs with the kicked-in faces.

9 — Your body begins to betray you at the most inappropriate times, threatening to exude gases and fluids when it’s not supposed to or developing that unholy itch in a personal area just when you’re about to meet the new boss — or Kevin, from Accounting, behind the salad bar.

And finally:

10 — Even though you’ve been telling yourself this since you were 21, at 50, you finally realize that, in fact, you DON’T actually give a shit what people think.

Happy Birthday, Cindy!  Come on over; we’re having cake — and Pepsi!

Social Media: The Teenage Years

stephen fryIn the face of a midwinter morning, it would be so-o-o-o easy to be bitchy.  It’s cloudy without the threat of mystic rain, chilly without being snuggly cold; the light’s all wrong and Stephen Fry has quit Twitter — again.  Fry is the most recent casualty in the War On Humour.  He made a joke at the Baftas and the Eagerly Offended from Social Media were on him like ugly on an ape.  (No offence, apes!)  Anyway, Fry has gone home to lick his wounds, or whatever else takes his fancy, saying, “too many people have peed in the pool” an apt description of Social Media: The Teenage Years.

Everybody knows the Internet has been around since Al Gore invented it back before Bill Clinton taught the world the value of sexual semantics. (See what bitchy looks like?)  However, most people don’t realize that Social Media is barely a dozen years old.  It isn’t even close to the Age of Consent.  In fact, if Social Media were a person, the things we do with it would get us all arrested.  I’ll just let that one sink in for a minute.

My point is Social Media is still an adolescent.  We all have high hopes that it will become that great intellectual and philosophical adult forum which will connect us to the ideas of the world, but … at this point, it’s still just one giant middle school.  It’s a place where we hang with the people who most reinforce our image of the world.  A place where the unfamiliar is viewed with caution, even suspicion — and sometimes anger.  It’s a place where the questions are painted with broad strokes so the answers can be straightforward.  But, beyond all that, like middle school, Social Media is a place where we’re all desperately, desperately trying to fit in and be cool.  In fact, when Glamour editor Jo Elvin took Fry to task, her exact words were “Uncool of Stephen Fry to say bafta winning costume designer dressed like a ‘bag lady’ I was thinking it was cool she wore what she wanted.”  And that’s what it all comes down to: who’s cool and who isn’t.

Cool is a teenage life choice and “I’m more sensitive than you” is a teenage social tactic.  Clearly, Social Media has a lot of growing up to do.  But Stephen Fry said it better, calling Social Media: “A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended — worse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know.”

Sounds like he doesn’t like the Cool Kids, either.  Get ’em Stephen!

God, it would be so-o-o-o easy to be offended on behalf of Stephen Fry today.  It’s a good thing I’m an adult and don’t go in for that sort of thing.