Overheard in a bookstore

Bookstores are sacred places to me, so it really really bugs me when people walk the aisles having loud conversations on their cell phones. Tonight, every aisle I went down I was plagued by a woman with a particularly loud voice having a particularly odd conversation. Here, are the parts I heard. 

"Is this person someone you can confide in?"

"Is this the person you're going away with?"

"Why are you being so secretive about everything?"

(At this point, I dodged her for several minutes, so I missed a lot.)

"No. Coming out is very difficult."

"No. I wasn't shocked."

Okay, so here's what I pieced together. She was talking to a friend who was telling her about someone special in his/her life and whomever she was talking to was playing the pronoun game avoiding gender and then the person on the other end of the phone came out of the closet. All this while loudmouth was browsing the shelves in a bookstore...wow.

Downward Trend

I was left waiting in the exam room at my doctor's office for an inordinately long time today. I always find myself trapped in this position with no good magazines in the room. That's how I know more than anyone over 15 should about the Jonas Brothers. 

Today's reading material? Seventeen.

I haven't seen an issue of Seventeen since I was about 15 or 16. I do, however, remember that it was not quite as fluffy as the other teen girl magazines. It had longer articles on topics like health and relationships and things like that. It wasn't just fashion and boy advice, there was actual substance there.

Not any more.

There wasn't a single article over half a page in length. Ninety percent of what I saw was about clothes or hair or makeup or "getting guys." 

There was one article about marrying young and getting into an abusive relationship. It was three paragraphs long and took up less than a quarter of a page.

And we wonder why teenagers today seem to lack substance and depth. Maybe we should have more faith in their ability to deal with depth and important issues.

The Big Dude and Mini-Me

There's this guy at my gym that the dear boy and I refer to as "The Big Dude." Funny thing is, if we say this in front of anyone else who goes to this gym, they know who we mean. He's built like an aging linebacker. He always has a weight belt on and usually a chain around his waist with some ridiculous weight attached to it. He is usually found either yelling to encourage whomever he's working out with or grunting loudly so that everyone will turn and see how strong he is.

The Big Dude is usually found with a guy we call "Mini Me." Mini-Me is about 15 years younger than The Big Dude. He's one of those short, thick gym rat types. He's about 5'7" with buzzed, over-gelled hair and ridiculously large arm muscles. The kind that keep you from putting your arms all the way down at your sides. Mini-Me doesn't talk much, he just lifts too much weight while The Big Dude yells at him.

This entire world-view was called into question this week. The Big Dude has a distinctive head full of tight curly hair, a long face and a particularly weak chin. Tuesday night, I spotted a young man on the other side of the workout floor. It was as though The Big Dude of the past had time travelled to today. Same curly hair, same weak chin, but about 25 years younger. I jokingly told the husband, "Look, it's a real Mini-Me for The Big Dude." We laughed from several minutes and then moved on.

15 minutes later, there was The Big Dude. There was Mini-Me. And up walked The Big Dude of the Past. He really is The Big Dude's son. Now what do we do? How can Mini-Me be Mini-Me if there's an actual smaller copy out there?

For now we're calling them The Big Dude, Mini-Me and The Real Mini-Me, but we're taking suggestions.

Apparently it's like riding a bike

I went roller skating today for the first time in like 7 years. I used to be a pretty avid rollerblader, but then I lived in a series of unnavigable cities and it fell by the wayside. Today, though, through a weird series of events, I ended up at a skating party. One that was pretty much all adults. 

I was surprised to find that after a few shaky moments, I remembered how. Completely. It was weird. Other than weak ankles, it all came right back to me.