Friends Forever

Posted on August 26, 2011 by fast eddie

My family says I have no friends. They say I am cantankerous and antisocial. I think I have too many friends. I don’t need any more. It’s too hard to keep up with the ones I already have. Unless they are on Facebook or Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter are perfect for me. I can keep track of my friends without ever talking to them. And when they update me on their status, it’s only a couple of sentences or, in the case of Twitter, less than 140 characters. And I don’t have to respond. Or I can just quickly hit the “like” button to acknowledge that I’m paying attention. I can also be friends with people who don’t really know we’re friends. Like Serena Williams,. We’ve been Facebook friends for a while. I hope she’s holding some good seats for me for the U.S. Open. I’d really like to sit in the family box next to Venus.

Facebook also enables me to be better about remembering my friends’ and family’s birthdays. Now I don’t have to actually call my Mom or send flowers on her birthday. I can just post something nice on her wall, like “Happy Birthday, hope you have a great day”.  And Facebook makes me think that hundreds of people actually remember my birthday, even the kids from day camp when I was eight years old or the kids from grammar school that I never invited to any of my birthday parties. This makes me feel a little guilty. Maybe I should have a big bowling party for all my Facebook friends who remember my birthday but haven’t been invited to any of my parties.

I also joined Google+, which is like Facebook but allows you to organize your friends into “circles”. So you can have an inner circle of friends who you share only your most intimate secrets with and a broader circle of friends who you ask to give to your favorite charities, or save a dog, or play FarmVille. You can also organize your high school friends into subgroups (cliques). For example, I could have a circle of just former girlfriends, and another (much larger) circle of girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day, and another circle (still larger) of guys who wanted to beat me up, and still another of guys who still want to beat me up.

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One Day

Posted on August 25, 2011 by fast eddie

One chick flick too many. The problem with having a family of all women is that I always get outvoted when its time to pick a movie. Needless, to say I’ve yet to see Captain America: The First Avenger or Rise of the Planet of the Apes (will anyone join me?). But unfortunately, I did see One Day, which would have been more aptly named Twenty Years. In fact, the best thing I have to say about this movie is that it is so realistic that, after just one hour and forty-seven minutes, you feel you have been in the theater for the full twenty years it takes for this story to unfold. I really have Anne Hathaway to blame. I love her. If she wasn’t in this movie, I never would have gone. I just wish she read the script before she accepted this job. She spends the entire movie trying to look awkward (impossible) and pining for a despicable creep (Jim Sturgess). Why? This movie challenged the limits of my new rating system (see The Help). I give it five trips to the men’s room, three email checks, and a walk around the block to get ice cream.

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Bossypants

Posted on August 24, 2011 by fast eddie

One of the great things about summer is that you can get away with reading anything and no one will judge you. Just say it’s your beach book and you get a free pass. In fact, you rarely see someone at the beach reading a hardcover 1,000 page biography of LBJ (see Buying Books). If you do, they are probably wearing a sweatshirt and a big floppy hat and sitting under an umbrella. They don’t know they are at the beach, and they started the book in front of a fireplace in a ski chalet in January. These days, Kindles and other e-readers make it even easier to get away with secretly reading trash. Nobody knows what you’re reading.

So I really don’t have to tell you this, but I’ve spent the last three weeks reading Bossypants, Tina Fey‘s autobiography. And I loved it. If I was a girl (no news here, although I am planning to have knee replacement surgery), I would want to be Tina Fey. She is hilarious. Her work as head writer on Saturday Night Live, including her uncanny imitation of Sarah Palin, and 30 Rock, which she co-created and stars in, ranks her among the all-time great TV comediennes. You can now add Bossypants to her list of triumphs. It’s laugh-out-loud funny. You still have a couple of weeks of summer left before your book club starts up again. So quick, go get it and head for the beach.

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Turtle

Posted on August 23, 2011 by fast eddie

They used to call me Turtle. I probably shouldn’t be telling you. It’s been buried for a long time. It was long before Fast Eddie. But one of my old friends from summer camp reminded me recently and it made me smile, so I felt compelled to fess up and share it with all of you. It was a summer camp nickname that referred to a few distinctive traits from that era. First of all (there will be a second of all), I wore a crew cut (which looked quite similar to my current haircut). Second of all (there, see), I had a hook nose (and still do). Finally, and most significantly, I could lie on my back and wrap both feet behind my head, creating the look of a turtle shell.  This, needless to say, I can no longer do. There you have it. Have fun. I am ready for the abuse.

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Pool Towels

Posted on August 22, 2011 by fast eddie

We got new pool towels. You may recall that the person who brings order to my universe (not to be mistaken for my wife) has been keeping abreast of the latest developments in towel technology (see Gym Towels). Hence, the arrival of a new matching set of fluffy pool towels, each with the unique feature of having a different number embroidered on it. This feature allows us to issue each house guest a single pool towel with their own number for their entire visit. It will not be washed no matter how long you stay. You bring it with you to the pool, the beach, fishing, kayaking, on picnics… If you forget your number, you will remain wet until you leave.

Now that we have the numbered pool towels, I am thinking about providing each guest an entire survival kit upon arrival, with their own mess kit, water bottle, toiletries, etc. to end all the confusion, washing and waste. In fact, I may also give them each a pint of ice cream and their own fruit pie to keep them out of mine.

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