Shawn Peters: No Pun Intended

The Real Birthday Boy

"When I wake up on my birthday," my son Teddy said with a look of total seriousness, "I will get up, jump up and down on my bed, and sing, 'It's my biiiiiiirthday, it's my biiiiiiiirthday." He said it every day for the past week.

After 38 days of blogging in preparation for my own birthday on August 30th, my experiment ended and all focus turned to Teddy's fourth birthday. Frankly, it was a more than welcome change as I think we're all better at doing for those we love than we are at doing for ourselves. But doing for Teddy is even easier. You see, Teddy loves me more than any human being has ever loved anything, and yes, that includes Robert Downey Jr.'s love of Mexican Black Tar heroin in the late '90s.

Day 1 - Happy Birthday to Me

You say it's your birthday? It's my birthday too, yeah.

 

Apologies to the Beatles, but at least I haven't  included a link to me singing the song, and thus, no apologies necessary for you.

 

Undoubtedly, birthdays are a chance for a person to feel special and remembered. But does the significance end there? Sure, the government and religion attaches special importance to some (13, 16, 18, 21, 65) while our base-ten-addicted culture tends to favor numbers ending in zero for prime significance. But at the end of the day, or more to the point, at the end of the year, you're really only a day older than you were the day before. We aren't cars with odometers that turn over and void our warrantees all at once. Our fan belts loosen, our brake pads wear thin and our transmission fluid leaks slowly most of the time, and these literal and figurative milestones are really just there to remind us to get in for routine maintenance.

 

Maybe birthdays are the same.  They're there not only to celebrate the passage of a year, but also to mark it so we can make sure we set a schedule of repairs and upgrades for the next 52 weeks. Sure, it's a fine time to look back on the past year, but isn't it more productive to use the occasion to establish a few goals, desires and aspirations for the time to come? It's only a bucket list if you wait until the bucket is within kicking distance, and I'd like to think I can't even see the squeegee, let alone the bucket.

 

Thus, to mark the final day of my "38 and Counting" Blog Experiment, instead of looking back, I'm looking forward. Here's my list of 39 things I'm going to do, or at least attempt, between now and my 39^th birthday.

Day 2 - The Good, The Ad, and the Bumpin' Ugly

While it's a constitutional right that all people accused of a crime must be defended by legal counsel, it's more of a common sense notion in America that any product that is legal to be sold in this country deserves a vigorous and strategic ad campaign. That said, I've just been a bit surprised by the vigor of a trio of products and campaigns I've come across lately.

Last night, while watching Project Runway on Lifetime, Sara and I encountered a spot that featured beautiful, confident women going about their daily routines. You know, shopping, working out, finishing up a shower. But these women were not the "stars" of this ad, because at each location, there was at least one shrub that went through a computer-generated transformation. The bushes in these spots were virtually trimmed into pleasing shapes like ovals, triangles, squares and strips. Now, I'll admit that my dirty, permanently-pubescent mind caught on pretty quick to where things were going, but then the "good Shawn" on my shoulder told me I was reading too much into the ad. Nope. Turns out "bad Shawn" was right on and the ad was for the Schick Quattro Trimstyle for Women, a feminine razor with an electric trimmer on the other end of the handle. The advertisers were reaching out to women who wished to "trim their bush" in the most literal way they could while remaining somewhat metaphorical, and thus, broadcast-safe.

Day 3- To Thine Own Self

When you're playing golf by yourself, you do things a little differently. For example, I know that when I play alone, I sometimes putt with the pin in, especially if it's a long one with almost no chance of going in. I might even decide to drop a ball and practice a shot I mishit, or try a second option if was deciding between two clubs. But at the end of the day, if I'm keeping score, and there's no one to keep me honest,  it's up to me whether I actually count every stroke.

I do. No mulligans or preferred lies.

It all comes down to whether you're honest with yourself.

It's the same ethic in terms of whether you ever cheat at solitaire, fail to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom or tip well. Really, no one will every know if you succumb to any of those vices and failings. But you will, just like you'll know whether you did a full work out at the gym or cut it short and spent some extra time reading the flyer for spray-on-tanning. 

I feel awful when I can't live up to a promise I made to someone else. So on the rare occasions when I can't keep my word, I'll do almost anything to make up for it. But we can't make amends when we let ourselves down. We also can't make excuses, because we know what really happened.

That's why I'm writing something... anything today, five full weeks into this exercise. I said I'd write every day, and that was a promise that I said out loud to my readers, but first said to myself.

I'm sure that when I start writing that novel, there will be days when I really don't want to write. I'm not promising that I'll find a way to write anyway, but at least after these 38 days, I'll know I can.

 

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"38 and Counting" is my attempt to blog once a day, every day, for 38 days leading up to and including my 38th birthday. Click here to see the other posts, in order, and check in daily.

 

Day 4 - Kicking Lame

Over the years, when I've told people that I met my wife at age 19 and was married when I was 23, I've gotten many responses about the fact that I apparently majored in monogamy with a minor in "don't even think of looking at her."

Some of the common comments and questions include,  "How did you know she was 'the one' for you?" "Wow, that's a long time to be with just one woman." "Was it an arranged marriage?" "Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what you missed?"

Good questions one and all, but they pre-suppose the idea that had I not fallen in love forever at an age when most young men fall in love eleven times a day, I might've met someone else... or multiple someone elses... who would've wanted me. Maybe they're right. Maybe back in my heyday, I was a little bit of a catch. I was healthy, strapping, and totally supported financially by my parents. But even if that was true then, it ain't so now, and personally, I think I made a wise investment and "sold" when my value as a mate was at its peak. I may not have been Enron, but EnShawn ain't too far off.

Day 5 - CritiSchism

If I said to you, "That pasta you made last night was amazing. The scallops were seared perfectly, the asparagus was firm, but tender, and the sauce was absolutely delicate. It was so good, I almost cried when there wasn't enough for seconds." How would you you feel? 

Good? Flattered? Proud? Or would you have  a gnawing feeling that what I was really saying was, "You didn't make enough food and I left the table hungry."

The fact is, people hear what they want to hear, and when it comes to anything critical or, God forbid, negative, it's sometimes all they hear.

Case in point. The Boston sports world is abuzz after the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessey, a well known controversy-monger, wrote an article about the team's star first-slash-third baseman, Kevin Youkilis. It started out being about the popular player's versatility, but halfway through, it became a quote-fest of Youkilis criticizing the fans and media in Boston for being negative and reactionary. This, from a guy who sounds like he's getting booed every time he comes to the plate, but only because 35,000 people are cheering "Yooooooooooouuuuuuuuuk!" This is not a guy who is disliked by one but Yankee fans, and who cares what they think.

Day 6 - Birthdazed and Confused

I think I'm ready to stop having birthdays, and believe it or not, it has very little with not wanting to get older. In fact, I think it's all about the inability to get younger, or at least reclaim a little of my youth.

There are entire schools of human psychology that  believe the personality flaws and quirks we have as adults are the result of what we wanted or needed but didn't get as children. That's certainly what Freud believed, though he mucked it all up with a bunch of stuff about pooping and eating and wanting to sleep with our mothers. But once you get past the gross stuff, there's no question he was definitely big into the whole equation of "unrequited childhood desire = grown up therapy sessions."

I'm not sure I agree across the board, but when it comes to my birthday, as the Monkees sang, "I'm a believer" because try as I might... and try as my wife and parents might... there's a better chance of me being named Head of Homeland Security and Bikini Inspection than there is of me being happy and satisfied on the day my age-o-meter turns over.

My birthday is this Sunday, August 30th, and I will celebrate it by boarding a plane to Los Angeles for work. It may sound like a downer, but it's actually more ironic than anything else, because from age seven on, through the rest of my childhood, adolescence and teendom, I lived in Los Angeles and usually celebrated my birthday by getting on a plane... to Boston. 

Day 7 -The Drop-off

I'd forgotten how crummy it feels. 

The tears. The too-tight hug around the neck. The wave at the window with one of us fake-smiling and the other one real-screaming.

For the past 15 months, I hadn't had to drop a child off  at daycare even once, and it had been almost two full years since then-toddler Teddy begged me in earnest not to leave him for the day, pleading for me to take him home or to work with me. It was different back then, when Teddy went to a home daycare three days a week. He was two, and thus built to tantrum, and I knew my little guy would transfer all feelings of love and need from me to Chris, his caregiver, as soon as I left. 

That wasn't the way it was this morning, as I took my only son, a few weeks short of his fourth birthday,  to a full-day pre-school and daycare not far from our old house. 

Day 8 - Time Off/Time Out

Many people use the terms "vacation", "trip" and "time off" interchangeably. These people are missing the point, if you ask me.

A trip is just that, namely a journey to somewhere  other than home where there are things to do, people or sights to see, and a mandated agenda. "We went on a trip to Minnesota to see cousin Herman, see his son graduate from clown college, and swing down to Darwin to see the world's largest ball of twine."

A vacation is also a journey, but it's one where the destination was chosen for it's lack of regimented agenda. The purpose is relaxation, regardless of what the vacationer considers to be relaxing. "We went on a vacation to Myrtle Beach to play some golf and get tan" would qualify for me. Maybe for you it would be "We went on vacation to a Vegan resort in Carmel. Six days of soy-based proteins ... ahhhh." Regardless, that's a vacation. 

Then there's "time off." I call it "The Holy Grail." For me, the key to time off is it's a period when I'm not going to work, and I'm not going anywhere, and I don't "have to" do anything. It's like a chance to live your own life as if you were unemployed... but still getting paid. I never end up doing nothing at all. Instead, I tend to mix in pleasure and long-nagging projects and seeing friends and family, all on a schedule as flexible as a nine-year-veteran of Cirque du Soleil.  For me, nothing recharges like good old time off, and I'm coming off a stretch with four days of "time off", a three day family "trip" and then another two days of "time off." It was good and long and easy... and tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM it's all over. I'll take wake up, usher Teddy to his new pre-school/daycare for the first time (someone alert FEMA that there will be a nuclear meltdown in Ashland, MA tomorrow around 7:45 AM) , then go to work and try and do two weeks of prep-work for a shoot in six days, and try to fit in time for physical therapy. Sara heads back to work this week too, making us a two-full-time-working-parent family for the first time in four years. Oh, yeah, and I still have a week left on this whole blog thing.

So you'll excuse me if I cut this entry short. I've only got a few more hours of "time off" in the foreseeable future, and I'm not spending them writing.

Day 9 - Pill Stopping

A few years ago, I got a prescription for Ambien, the popular sleep aid. This was not for recreational purposes.  I'm a terrible at falling asleep, and worst of all, once it becomes clear I won't be slumbering any time soon, I lie awake fretting over why  I can't keep my eyes closed. My mind becomes a petrie dish with whatever's bugging me growing like a fungus in the dark. It's not an every-night thing, but when it happens, it's crushing and it can ruin an entire work week as I fruitlessly try to catch up and end up sleepwalking my way through life until I get enough z's.

When I got the pills home, I read the literature that came with it and saw quite a few side effects. I've been cautious bout that kind of thing since when I was about 13 years old and had a nasty reaction to an allergy medicine. One night, after taking the prescription antihistamine religiously for three months, I missed a night and proceeded to have full-blown withdrawal symptoms. We're talking night sweats, the shakes, and half-awake hallucinations of bugs and snakes crawling all over me until an hour before dawn. All the DT's, none of the fun of being addicted to something good. 

Reading down the list of possible side effects for Ambien, I saw the usual slate of stomach maladies , blurred vision, and possible depression, but the one that got my attention was the caution that people using Ambien have reported walking, talking, driving, eating and having sex without any memory of it the next day.