She Was My Millie From The Midwest

They tell me to write about my Millie from the Midwest and to stop with posts about the The Sunset of An Empire.

“Josh, you shouldn’t shame people or call them stupid because you aren’t going to change their minds. You’re only going to make them dig in.”

I shake my head and say I don’t care.

“I won’t try to spare their feelings for not speaking out about the worst of offenses and for helping to maintain bad policy. They aren’t listening to reason so some of them need to hear they are bad mothers, bad fathers and bad people because that’s who supports splitting families up.

Bad people.

There are other ways to provide secure borders. Other ways to handle things that don’t compromise all we say we are.”

She Was My Millie From The Midwest

In a different life time the boys asked me to tell them about the girl from Ohio and what she was like.

“She was my Millie from the Midwest.”

“Millie? WTF does that mean? You’re not old enough to have a Millie.”

I laugh and say she is older. “If I had to describe her I might use something like this…maybe. Or maybe I’d have to go with this.

A female voice interrupts the conversation and in less than a minute I get 15 questions and a half dozen comments.

“You’re either going to scare the hell out of her with that nonsense or make her fall hard. Knowing you I wonder if scare is too nice a word.”

The lecture continues for a moment and ends on a nicer note, “she’d be lucky to catch you…if you’ll let yourself be caught.

*****

A few months back when I joined a new gym and began to focus on lifting as I haven’t lifted in a long time I set a few goals for myself.

One of them was to get back to benching 225. I figured if by the end of the year I could hit 225 again and do three sets of 10-12 reps I would be doing ok.

Two things threw my plans a little bit:

1. Mystery aches and pains made it difficult to lift the way I expected to and that included a bout of tendinitis in my left arm that didn’t want to heal.
2. I put up 225 yesterday and pumped out two sets of five reps.

The second item was a pleasant surprise because I didn’t expect to be able to lift that for a while longer.

Can’t say my form was great but it worked and I wasn’t ever worried about dropping the bar. Hell, I probably could go up another 25-30 pounds.

It got me thinking about whether I’ll push to get back to doing 330 or maybe 350 for my 50th birthday.

Haven’t done anything close to that since I was in my twenties, would be kind of cool to do it all these years later.

Walk Whichever Way

The music plays and inside my head I process what I hear in whatever way men like me do so.

It feels like every time I think I have passed by the crossroads I discover that I haven’t walked past, over, under or through the last one.

Sometimes I give thanks for that because it makes life interesting and sometimes I curse it because a man who dances in the fire wishes for a period of quiet and calm.

Maybe that is a myth promulgated by the fables of pop culture and other items consumed visually and or aurally.

The men I would ask about such things are gone or not able to discuss such things in the fashion I would like so I adjust my expectations and shrug my shoulders.

Perhaps they would tell me there are no real answers or that the ones I wish for won’t come until a certain amount of time has passed.

I have my thoughts and ideas and know eventually I’ll find what I am looking for.

Sometimes that thought makes me smile and I remember the old saw about not looking backwards because you’ll see what is chasing after you.

*****

Dad and I got the chance to wish each other a Happy Father’s Day.

It was nice to be able to do it, especially knowing so many who no longer have that option. But I also knew neither one of us would have been particularly bothered if we hadn’t gotten to today because we can speak some other time.

That is a luxury and privilege that I am glad to have for however long I have got it.

We kept the day relatively simple here and that was fine with me. I didn’t need anything special and was happy to go out to eat wearing comfortable clothes.

I dress up enough during the week and am very happy to wear my shorts and t-shirt instead of slacks and a jacket.

Blame it on my California roots, it is rare that I feel a need to get dressed up to go out.

Meanwhile I sit here at home knowing that this time next week I’ll be back to playing bachelor.  Got roughly 32 days of living alone again.

It is kind of cool, kind of lonely. I guess it is prep for empty nest time.

The time will go quickly, far more so than for those people who came looking for asylum and learned that there are some very bad policies and people running things now.

It is not sad, it is shameful.

This administration has no decency.