COLUMN: Life in the Hodgepodge Lane

By Tobin Barnes

I’ve been doing a lot of article reading lately so you don’t have to. And, as an added bonus, it’s been totally unfocused and random.

So what does that mean?

Means it’s time for “Hodgepodge.” That’s right, little bits of nothing in particular.

First off, I read this piece by Richard Conniff called “Accentuating the Negative.” (By the way, my selections don’t necessarily reveal any Freudian insights to my personality.)

Anyway, Conniff was talking about how recent research has found that marriages are headed for the scrap pile if spouses can’t manage to come up with five positive interactions for every negative one.

Wow! Sounds like it’s time to get out the spreadsheets and do some accounting. Kind of like being a bookie, trying to shave points and make some money on the juice.

The whole theory comes from University of Washington psychologist John Gottman. (I’d like to be a fly on the wall at his house, see how he’s doing.) I mean, like what would be better? Doing everything you can to avoid the negative moments or conceding the inevitable and stockpiling positive points like a squirrel gathering nuts?

Guy would have to be like this: “Honey, are you comfortable? Would you rather have my chair? How about something to drink? Coffee, soda? Anything else I could get for you?”

And then she’s going: “Let’s watch some football tonight! I’ll get some pork rinds and beer, and we’ll make a night of it.”

Come on! It’d be so synthetic and saccharine, it’d drive both of them nuts. Be calling their attorneys before the week was out.

Then I’m reading this article by Damon Darlin titled “ It’s O.K. to Fall Behind the Technology Curve.” The gist of the thing was that electronics are not only continuously getting better, but cheaper as well.

Starts out talking about how Raul Axtle recently bought an LCD TV for $1,600 when as recently as last April it had been priced at $3,000.

“Everything keeps coming down in price,” Axtle said in the article. “Next year the TVs will be even better,” maybe making the point to himself and everyone else that we’re fools for buying anything now that’s technological or gadgety. Instead, we should always wait and buy that kind of stuff later...if then.

And “then” might not be the right time either.

Patience! It’ll just keep getting better--do more things in more fascinating ways--and cost a whole lot less. Eventually, if you can wait long enough, you’ll be able to buy all the gadgets you want for about two hundred bucks. Look what happened with calculators. They eventually gave them away as Cracker Jack prizes.

So just wait. Avoid buyer’s remorse. It’ll all be yours and in spades if you can just hold on. Either that, or you’ll be dead because hey, you waited too long.

Finally, I’m reading “A Real Gem” by Sara Gruen, whose latest novel is “Water for Elephants” that my sister-in-law raves about.

At any rate, Gruen makes note of the fact that a now-patented process can turn your dearly departed’s ashes “into a beautiful, gemologist-certified diamond mounted in any one of our wide variety of jewelry settings.”

By the way, they also do dead pets.

Gruen, who’s field is evidently fiction, goes on to fictionalize a scenario in her article, complete with dialogue, of how utilization of this technology would play out in the real world. In the voice of a newly dead husband, she describes how his wife, Marsha, goes about accessorizing him.

I, on the other hand, don’t need to fictionalize anything because here’s the reality. The people who hold this patent are going bust if they try to make money on it. No one’s going to want to see poor-old, one dimensional Uncle Doug turned into a multi-faceted anything.

Not only that, but it will be a whole nother problem when the still-grieving wife has to struggle with deciding whether her dress looks better wearing baubles made of faux ruby Rascal, or, instead perhaps, diamond Doug.

Death Be Not Manicured: The latest in green burial

Interesting stuff, but I think some of that guy's going to end up down the drain of the washing machine. (Click above title to get to the slide show.)

AMAZING BUT TRUE: Eagle vs. Fox

Our cat, Shadow, could be next.

SIGN IT'S GETTING WORSE: Deubrook High School

Who's getting the playing time on the basketball court? Now it's going to another kind of court.

50 Forever

Tom Aldrich writes from Phoenix, AZ:

Here's a book for all of us "old" guys--now remember, today's 50 is
yesterday's 35 (or something like that). At any rate, the book perked my
interest. A friend gave it to me as I continue on my way down the never-
ending path of trying to diet and lose weight. Everyone keeps telling me
that the key is to change one's lifestyle. Easier said than done.

Best Regards, Tom A


Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond
(Hardcover)
by Chris Crowley, Henry S. Lodge

Book Description:

Turn back your biological clock. A breakthrough book for men--as much fun to read as it is persuasive--Younger Next Year draws on the very latest science of aging to show how men 50 or older can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, and continue to live like
fifty-year-olds until well into their eighties. To enjoy life and be
stronger, healthier, and more alert. To stave off 70% of the normal decay
associated with aging (weakness, sore joints, apathy), and to eliminate over 50% of all illness and potential injuries. This is the real thing, a program that will work for anyone who decides to apply himself to "Harry's Rules."

Harry is Henry S. Lodge, M.D., a specialist in internal medicine and
preventive healthcare. Chris Crowley is Harry's 70-year-old patient who's
stronger today (and skiing better) than when he was 40. Together, in
alternating chapters that are lively, sometimes outspoken, and always
utterly convincing, they spell out Harry's Rules and the science behind
them. The rules are deceptively simple: Exercise Six Days a Week. Eat What You Know You Should. Connect to Other People and Commit to Feeling Passionate About Something. The science, simplified and demystified, ranges from the molecular biology of growth and decay to how our bodies and minds evolved (and why they fare so poorly in our sedentary, all-feast no-famine culture). The result is nothing less than a paradigm shift in our view of aging.

Welcome to the next third of your life--train for it, and you'll have a ball.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Oliphant Cartoon

Pat Oliphant is my political cartoon god.

VIDEO: Hu Is on First?

A fairly clever takeoff on Abbott and Costello's classic bit. Again, Bush is the target. Forwarded by Roy Wilson.

VIDEO: Romantic Sleigh Ride

My wife says this is guy's humor. No doubt. Probably third grade. Forwarded by Roy Wilson, who like me has a juvenile streak.

Birth of an Island

I need to buy a yacht so I can see things like this.

2006: The Year in Pictures

Classy presentation of the year's photography in the New York Times. Don't stop at the "Overview." Check out the other photography categories as well.