All in Other
Every six months my doctor’s office insists on seeing me for blood work and general review (its annoying how they are trying to keep me alive). On my visit last year, I stepped on the scale and was shocked by how much weight I had gained (beer, scotch, and pizza is bad for you? Why am I always the last to know?).
My sister Diane was having a yard sale along with friends and family who showcased their items along her driveway and large front yard. Shortly after I arrived, my brother-in-law Jimmy called me over to show me something.
My brother Joe tells me that one day I’ll be that person they find weeks after their death because of the strange smell coming from the house. I assured him that would not happen. First of all, there are enough people that I interact with that would miss me if I suddenly disappeared.
On my first day of vacation in Belmar, N.J., I unloaded my car and then headed up to the beach. I got to the boardwalk and decided to take a walk. Cars are parked all along the boardwalk and as I neared a silver van in a handicapped spot I noticed what appeared to be a hand-written note under the driver’s side windshield wiper.
Once the graduates entered and were seated, and after the initial greeting by the President of the University, the commencement speaker was announced. He rose and he stepped up to the podium.
I know I have put on some weight over the last few years; up until this point, I could still convince myself that I was just on this side of a circus attraction. It wasn’t until that moment did I realize how close I’ve come to “step right up and see the worlds fattest man — don’t get too close kids, he hasn’t eaten today.”
The day I was discharged from the hospital one of the phantom heads that popped into my room over the last nine days took pity on me and took me on as a patient. I felt like the fat kid picked last for Dodgeball; you’re on the team, but they know you’re not going to last very long.
In the 70s and 80s we owned the Jersey Shore; it was our playground, our education. Manasquan was Middle School, Seaside was High School, and Belmar was College.Today, watching MTV’s Jersey Shore is like watching a girl you were in love with in High School and seeing that she married an asshole.
One thing that I found very interesting about my blog posts were that other websites were linking to some of them. Websites that specialized in or talked about divorce linked to the post I wrote about my divorce. The same was happening with dating websites. I often Google myself (and I haven’t gone blind yet) to see where some of my posts landed out there on the web.
The bartenders were all characters, but my favorite was a tall, lanky man named Robert John. I don’t know if John was his middle or last name, we just called him Robert John. He was over six feet tall with crew-cut black hair and Coke-bottle-thick glasses that made his eyes appear surprised whenever he looked at you.
When I was younger, I was a bouncer. I walked through crowds, wearing the “I’m in charge here” shirt, broke up fights, threw out drunks and tried (tried) to pick up girls. It was a great time. Even after my bouncer days were over, I would still jump in and break up fights, though it proved more dangerous without the shirt (I’ve heard ‘who the fuck are you?’ more than once).
