Dan Burns (played by Steve Carell) writes a daily newspaper advice column entitled “Dan in Real Life.” He’s a widower and the anxious, overprotective father of three daughters. The wisdom about love and life he offers up to his readers apparently comes from a voice within that he is able to transmit but cannot really hear himself. The morning after he and the kids show up at his parents’ (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney) beach house for a holiday, family-reunion-type weekend, his mother immediately orders him to go out and “buy the papers” — and take some time away from his daughters who are obviously exasperated with their totally-not-so-cool dad.

It’s in a used-book store, where Dan decides to buy the morning newspaper, that he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche). Marie is obviously in the midst of some kind of minor personal crisis and she “needs a book” to get her through. She asks Dan for some help thinking that he’s an employee there. Although amusing and obliging, he eventually gets busted as just another customer. After asking Marie if he can make it up to her, Dan, in the initial stages of infatuation, spends a good portion of the rest of the morning telling her his life story.

It’s only when she eventually gets called away, and he returns back to the beach house, that he learns this “hottie” he’s found is the new girlfriend of his brother Mitch (Dane Cook). And that this weekend is to be her induction into the family.

The rest of the movie, Dan in Real Life, is spent illustrating the myriad awkward (some hilarious, some touching) moments that arise when, in the middle of this intimate family gathering, Dan and Marie work through their mutual-attraction issues.

This is a romantic comedy, of course, so it’s a happy ending. And while the outcome is entirely predictable, I recommend that you, too, see this movie. Treat yourself: escape for awhile and vicariously experience some of those giddy, beginning-of-a-relationship feelings.

So here’s why I mention any of this…

I believe this film reinforces one of life’s basic truisms. Namely: you just never know. For there you are, completely minding your own business and, wham (!), for better or worse, you turn a corner (or enter a bookstore) and your entire life changes. Further, while you can make plans for your time here on earth, the advice remains: expect the unexpected.

“…the only thing you can truly plan on…is to be surprised.”

I think you’ll agree that Boomers’ bodies are showing definite signs of wear and tear … and that these fragile shells of ours need more and more attention as time marches on. Of course, those of us attending to such maintenance chores are the fortunate ones: we’re still here.

To help monitor and support my body, I see a primary-care physician; a urologist; a neurologist; a rheumatologist; an opthamologist; a physical therapist; a massage therapist; a bodywork therapist; a naturopath; and a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I’ve moved three times in the last four years, and every time I’ve done so, I’ve needed to make it a first order of business to assemble a new team.

I am watchful of my cholesterol and blood pressure, and obsess about my PSA. I dread the twice-yearly DRE. I’ve had a colonoscopy and a cystoscopy. At one point, I needed to wait, for eight long days, on the results of a prostate biopsy. During one long emergency-room visit some time ago, I was (mis-) diagnosed with bladder cancer.

But, knock on wood: I have never needed the services of an oncologist. Or a surgeon. And my new physical therapist recently observed that I am “basically healthy.”

Still, when you get to be a sexagenarian, the probability of needing a highly-skilled medical specialist increases virtually every minute. And all of us have family, friends and loved ones who have been very ill or are no longer with us.

To help ensure that I delay the need for extreme intervention as long as possible, I spend (what I believe to be) inordinate amounts of time and energy every day focusing on this old bod. I walk, I stretch, I ice my back and shoulders. I soak in hot Epsom-salt baths. I engage in a rigorous regimen of vitamins, minerals, supplements and TCM herbs. I drink green tea and lots of water. I eat small portions of mostly-healthy foods. I don’t drink or smoke. I avoid sugar, preservatives, red meat and caffeine. I have regular bodywork and physical-therapy appointments. I read, and collect, books on a variety of health issues. I subscribe to an internet newsletter that provides me with regular updates on natural health and healing. And I check in with an online fibromyalgia support group on occasion.

I’ve been thinking that, pretty much, getting old is a full-time job. No wonder there’s such a thing as retirement! Who has time to work when there’s so much other stuff in life to pay attention to?

As I enjoy a leisurely holiday weekend away from my current place of employment, I’m thankful for my basic good health. And that I’m a Boomer. For if there’s anything good about being a member of this generation, it’s that you’re never, really, alone.

Turning 60 is not an insignificant milestone. It sure has me thinking a lot lately, given that I’m now about three months into my seventh decade.

And it appears that I’m not the only one with the implications of baby-boomer aging on my mind.

Last month, in an op-ed piece entitled “Second Acts,” Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman told a small part of the Al Gore story…in essence arguing that, in the aftermath of his loss to George W. Bush, Gore was able to rediscover his true calling. Goodman believes that he “found himself by losing himself – literally losing – and being liberated from ambition.”

Further, Goodman suggests that Gore is blazing a new trail for the baby-boomer generation. “Consider the new sixtysomethings,” she says…

…Next Friday, Hillary Clinton turns 60 and her second act is running for president. And when the new Harvard president, Drew Gilpin Faust, 60, met with her Bryn Mawr classmates last summer? Many were talking about leaving their “extreme jobs” just as she was installed in hers.

Baby boomers are the first generation that can look forward to such a lengthy and (fingers crossed) healthy stage of later life. They are as likely to be talking about what they want to do next as about where they want to retire. Never mind all those declarations that 60 is the new 40. In fact, 60 is the new 60.

For me, at age 60, it’s certainly not the case that I’m talking about retirement. As always, in my life, it’s about what to do next.

Not that the question of “what to do next” is, I hope, going to come up very soon (given that I’ve, just recently, totally changed my life yet again). It’s just that, like Gore, in losing, I seem to have found a new direction. Hopefully one that will sustain me for some time to come.

As I’ve written about before, I was forced to reconsider my life almost from the moment the Governor of Oregon dismissed the entire State Board of Higher Education on November 13, 2003. With that single act, after nine years as a policy-wonk type, I needed to find someplace else to land, something else to do. As with our former Vice President, who found a different ladder to climb after some time in the wilderness (how’s that for mixing metaphors?!), I too spent some years out there in the wild, trying to come to grips with the realities of loss and seeking to find a way to let go. Specifically, my path of soul-searching consisted of three years and two temporary jobs at different dysfunctional institutions. Although they took a high personal toll, the growth-providing experiences I had from 2004 to 2007 laid the foundation for finding my version of the “extreme job” …which ultimately came within a month of my 60th birthday.

Not that my current place is the be-all and end-all. Surely it isn’t. When I was recently providing an outline of my non-linear, wayward life to the young woman who now cuts my hair, she seemed genuinely curious about all those twists and turns. At one point, I disclosed that I had very few regrets, but that “if I had it all to do over again,” I might try to focus my life more on writing and photography. When she suggested that “it’s not too late…”, I balked. I indicated that I can write and do photography and pursue my current professional path: that changing directions entirely, at this point, might just take more energy than I have.

But, who knows? I don’t know how long I’ll live. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s that you can never know what tomorrow will bring. As Ellen Goodman states, “…under the old compact, sixtysomethings were supposed to get out of the way and out of work. They were encouraged by financial incentives and prodded by discrimination. Now we are drawing blueprints for people who see themselves more as citizens than seniors.”

In all honesty, I don’t have any idea when the next fork in the road will present itself to me. For now, though, despite all those aches and pains, I am a citizen, not a senior.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra

As far back as July 2006 I started talking about my aversion to noise, particularly the annoying cell-phone-user variety. I continually ask myself the question: where do I have to go, what, dear god, do I have to do, to get away from these inconsiderate, loudmouth assholes?

I’m sick. I’m tired. I’m totally frazzled with the “cell-phone voice” that seems to be everywhere. For example, say I’m in the local Starbucks (as I was just today), quietly sipping my cup of tea and reading a book, with the normal background hum of voices and activity. Then, a person a table or two away takes or makes a call, and before I even look up to confirm, I know that voice. Geez, it’s somebody talking on their damn phone. Of course it is. It’s happening all around us! Does she really think I care if she’s running late? Or that he’s hungover? Or that her sister is sick? Or that her husband-boyfriend-significant-other doesn’t “get” her? Or that his college won the big game yesterday? Or that, woe is me, the Dow lost 130 points last week? Or that she thinks “like, you know, whatever…”?

Tell me: how could I possibly give a rat’s ass?!

Well, I don’t.

But, enter: HOPE.

I recently discovered what I think is a “must-have” piece of modern technology: the cell-phone jammer. In a newspaper article last week entitled “Cell-Phone Jammers Can Zap All The Yap,” I learned of these wondrous little (often extremely small and portable) devices. I don’t need to go into how these things actually work, since, if you’re interested, you can read up on that yourself. Suffice it to say that, for not much money, you too can own a gadget that can zap the signal of cell phones in your immediate vicinity.

Think of yourself on a bus or commuter train, in the doctor’s waiting room, in the theatre, or, like me, in the coffee shop: and having actual control over the airspace! You just push a button and, whammo! …instant impotence (technologically speaking) for that useless, harebrained cell-phone user!

HA!

Of course, there happens to be a down side, as use of these miracle tools just happens to be against the law. Alas, cell-phone jamming is covered under the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits us from “willfully or maliciously interfering with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized” to operate. In fact, the “manufacture, importation, sale or offer for sale, including advertising, of devices designed to block or jam wireless transmissions is prohibited” as well.

Dang!

So, given this, of course I’m not advocating that you go out and buy one of these things. It just wouldn’t be right, would it? I would never, ever endorse any kind of illegal activity here on my website. That would be terrible of me!

So, how about if I suggest an alternative that IS totally legal?

It just so happens that I’ve discovered another way to start fighting back. I’ve become aware of a method that is neither illegal nor surreptitious, but, rather, totally above-board…and just may win the hearts and minds of those around you.

I suggest you go to the website introducing you to the (unfortunately fictional) Society for HandHeld Hushing (SHHH!). Once there, you will find a pdf file which you can download and print out that will furnish you with some little “business cards” you can cut up and hand to those loudmouths on cell phones.

Imagine yourself, if you will, handing a modestly-sized nicely-printed card to someone stating that:

The Rest of Us DON’T CARE What He Said To You.

or

The World Is A Noisy Place. You Aren’t Helping Things.

or

Just so you know: EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS BEING FORCED TO LISTEN TO YOUR CONVERSATION.

or

Dear Cell Phone User: We are aware that your ongoing conversation with (fill in the blank) is very important to you, but we thought you’d like to know that it doesn’t interest us in the least. In fact, your babbling disregard for others is more than a little annoying.

or, simply:

SHHH!

Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it? …the silence, that is.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

(“The Sounds of Silence” – Simon & Garfunkel)

On an episode of the TV program Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) I watched recently, Larry David took off on one of his famous stream-of-consciousness digressions – this time about his preference and tendency to use stalls, rather than urinals, when visiting public restrooms.

Interestingly enough (or maybe not), his admission stimulated some electrical impulses and activity in my warped brain that led me to think of Hund’s Rule of Maximum Multiplicity – a topic you must remember from general chemistry class. Of course, this postulate is often referred to as “the bus-seat rule.”

Hund’s Rule describes the process of populating atomic orbitals with electrons – specifically the way those electrons are arranged – as atomic number increases. Quite simply, the rule stipulates that if two electrons have two spaces (i.e., orbitals) to occupy, then they would rather occupy one orbital each rather than “pair up” and occupy just one orbital.

So, for example, take the case of the element Boron which has three “p” orbitals but just one electron in that particular energy level. For argument’s sake, let’s say that that lone electron occupies the p(x) orbital. The next element on the periodic table, Carbon, has the same number of p orbitals (but one more electron than Boron) with one electron in each of the p(x) and p(y) orbitals. And Nitrogen, the next element in line, has three electrons in this energy level, one in each of the p(x), p(y), and p(z) orbitals. Can you visualize this at all? Electrons are distributing themselves among the p orbitals much as passengers on a bus: nobody sits next to someone else unless and until they really have to. So, in the case of Oxygen, yet the next element under consideration, the configuration would have two electrons in p(x) and one each in the other two orbitals. (The two electrons in p(x) are said to be a “lone pair.”)

So, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this? (If you’re still reading, that is). What does Larry David’s use of stalls have to do with Hund’s Rule and electrons?

Well, actually, hardly anything. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about bathroom behavior myself (remember I’m talkin’ Larry David not Larry Craig kinda stuff here!)…given that last summer, in some of the buildings on campus, new urinals were installed. Our urinals are supposedly the latest in “green” technology – as they are waterless devices that don’t use H₂O to flush with. They actually don’t flush: all in all, not a bad idea to conserve water, and the campus is making points in the community for its conservation efforts.

The thing is, the urinals have been installed with no privacy dividers between them. When you’re standing there doing your business, it’s sort of like lining up at a public trough. And, for me, that’s not the most comfortable situation in the world. What’s the deal here, anyway? We’re already conserving 2.5 million gallons of water per year (!) …do we really have to give up our privacy rights too?

So: this is where the bus-seat rule comes into play. With no dividers between the urinals (hence no privacy) and, I think, many of us modern men having similar reservations about the public-trough concept, what we do is situate ourselves as far apart as possible when we’re in the restroom doing our thing. For example, I’ll walk in and I’m the only one in there. I’ll take the urinal that’s next to the partition separating the sink and the urinal sections. The next guy comes in and will take the urinal that’s tenth (out of ten) in line…around the corner a little bit. If a third person comes in, he’ll take one of the urinals approximately midway between us. And so on.

Given this, doesn’t it seem that our bathroom behavior is a little like seating on a bus or electrons in orbitals? Or, I guess, even other types of human behavior. For example, a blogger named Vishy, in a post from early 2005, observed that Hund’s Rule can also apply to seating ourselves in a cafeteria or taking the elevator.

Not that keeping your distance from others is such a bad thing. Sometimes there are certain activities that are just plain better when performed alone. Hund tells us that the pairing of electrons is an unfavorable process where energy must be expended in order to make it occur. I suggest that the closeness of humans, in some situations, is not the greatest of things either… with there being energetic, emotional and social barriers to making it (i.e., the closeness) happen.

Me? I support the practice of privacy dividers in our public restrooms or, in their absence, maximum multiplicity.