Join the Circus Like You Wanted to When You Were A… Ooh, Never Mind

Last Friday, my family and I went to the circus.  Ringling Brothers?  Nope.  Cirque de Soleil?  Afraid not.  No, this was the Zerbini Family Circus, a true traveling circus, which means, in a word, that it stank. 

I’ve never been a big fan of the circus.  I don’t like clowns and I don’t like it when animals do tricks, so when the circus comes to town, I usually head in the other direction.  But the Zerbini Family Circus came to our town for a very special reason: my daughter’s school read over 16,000 books this year and the circus was their reward for a job well done. 

The circus was set up in a big empty field, under what I would describe generously as a “medium top.”  They had a number of attractions outside the main tent, including a giant inflatable Titanic that was in the act of sinking into the depths of the Atlantic.  We’re having some fun now!  For three bucks, your child could scamper up to the “stern” of the ship (where Leonardo DiCaprio shouted “This is it!” to Kate Winslet) and then slide down into what presumably would be freezing water.  Both my kids did it and had a blast.  One of our friend’s kids froze in panic at the top and her dad had to go up and get her.  Clearly, the thing was not designed to bear the weight of a grown man because he and his daughter wiped out spectacularly as they slid down together.  “You could have made some money off of that video,” a spectator told his wife. 

The first attraction under the Zerbini big top?  The “Bleachers of Doom.”  Picture about 200 parents and 500 kids all scrambling to get a seat on these rickety, slippery metal bleachers, which had no handrails anywhere.  You could almost hear ACL’s tearing and ankles snapping.  We climbed to the top corner of the bleachers, as far away as humanly possible from the clowns, who were warming up the crowd.

The circus started and the ringmistress introduced the first act… the Bouncing Brazilians!  The act consisted of two girls and a guy jumping around and doing tricks on a trampoline.  They eventually brought our “Little Ronnie,” billed as “the smallest living entertainer,” which is total horseshit, since he was about twice the size as the guy who plays Mini Me in the Austin Powers movies.  Little Ronnie got up on the trampoline and the Bouncing Brazilians proceeded to bounce him up in the air over and over and over again.  His little arms and legs flailed wildly.  Oh, Little Ronnie, you poor bastard.

A few minutes later, another acrobat act was introduced… the Ling Sisters from China or something like that.  It took me a minute, but I eventually realized that the Ling Sisters were the same two girls from the Bouncing Brazilians, just in different costumes.  (Both looked Eastern European to me, actually.)

Little Ronnie then came out dressed as a clown, along with two other regular-sized clowns.  They didn’t speak, of course, but they did blow whistles to communicate with the audience and with each other.  After their act ended, the ringmistress announced that the clowns would be coming around the crowd selling whistles, just like the ones they had used. 

“How much do you think we should sell the whistles for?” she asked one of the clowns.

“Five dollars!” the clown said, suddenly capable of speaking.

You could see all the parents noticeably relax.  Even the most spoiled child would understand that five bucks was a total rip-off for piece-of-shit plastic whistle.

“No, no, no,” the ringmistress said.  “That’s too much money!”

“Four dollars!” another one of the clowns shouted. 

A few parents glanced up from their Blackberries. 

“No,” said the ringmistress.  “That’s still too much, don’t you think, boys and girls?”

The kids screeched their agreement.  The vibe among the parents had shifted noticeably. 

“Three dollars!” Little Ronnie shouted.   The kids cheered.  The parents fumed.  What the hell do you know about the price of whistles anyway, Little Ronnie?   

I won’t bore you with the rest of the story.  Suffice it to say that the price of the whistles eventually dropped to one dollar and they sold a shitload of them.  For the rest of the night, the arena was filled with the soothing sounds of several hundred kids blowing whistles really loudly.  Another Friday night in paradise, baby!

The Zerbini Family Circus featured several animal acts, including two camels that looked as though they were about to drop dead right in the middle of the ring.  It’s times like these when you hope that animals actually DON’T have higher order thoughts and feelings.  They also brought out a small Shetland pony named Shamrock, who trotted around the ring a few times.  (Like with Little Ronnie, the ringmistress claimed that Shamrock was the world’s smallest horse.  Highly unlikely.) 

The only act that really got my attention was the “King of the Malambos” (another ”Bouncing Brazilian,” I believe.)  This was a guy who whipped around these two golf-ball-sized balls on the end of a long string.  He could snap the Malambos down onto the floor and make it sound like a flamenco dancer.  The ringmistress called on a Dad to volunteer to put a cigarette in his mouth and have the Malambo King try to knock it out, presumably without leaving the Dad with a massive concussion.  Hilariously, the Dad who volunteered seemed much less concerned about his head than he did about his balls because his hands kept instinctively moving over his crotch as the King whipped his Malambos dramatically around in the air.  Sure enough, the King knocked the cigarette cleanly from the Dad’s mouth, then tousled the Dad’s hair with the Malambos for good measure, which I thought was pretty cool.

At the end of the show, the performers — all six of them — came out into the middle of the ring waving American flags to the strains of Neil Diamond’s “America.”  I thought they would do something dramatic, but, no, they just kept waving their flags, the song ended, and that was that. 

We happened to be sitting right near the spot where the circus performers would leave the ring after every act.  They would be smiling and waving to the crowd and then I would get to see them walk the final few feet into their dressing room, away from the spotlight.  Their faces changed during those final few feet, friends, and, believe me, they didn’t get happier.  The animal trainer looked particularly pained, probably because he was about 70 years old and had been chasing camels around for most of his adult life. 

About ten seconds after the show was over, the carnies began taking everything apart.  I’m sure they were playing in another town the next night and, no doubt, are playing somewhere in America tonight.

There is a wonderful Far Side cartoon from many, many years ago where two dorky-looking kids are shown crawling out from under a circus tent.  The caption reads, “Ironically, Barnum’s and Bailey’s respective kids — Sid and Marty — both ran away one night to join corporate America.”  Good call, kids. 

Ten Words for Father’s Day

My children gave me the most wonderful Father’s Day card this morning.  Since my son is only two, it’s clear that my seven-year-old daughter was the primary “auteur.” 

You may recall in a previous post that I discussed the five words my daughter used to describe herself recently, which inspired me to come up with five words to describe myself.  My list was as follows: Funny.  Lucky.  Angry.  Tall.  Incomplete.

In my Father’s Day card, my daughter created a list of her own to describe me, only this list went on for ten words.  Here they are, in order: Handsome.  Kind.  Terrific.  Funny.  Playful.  Fun.  Fantastic.  Awesome.  Gentle.  Adventurous. 

As you might imagine, I was near tears by about “Terrific” and I will cherish this card for the rest of my life for reasons that my daughter will only be able to understand many years from now.

You are a father because you have children.  Madeleine and Christian, you mean so very much to me.  I am honored and humbled every day to be a part of your lives.   Thank you for making me a father and for making today a wonderful Father’s Day.    

Five Words

My daughter, Madeleine, was the “star student” in her second-grade class last week.  You don’t actually have to do anything special to be the “star student,” of course, not in this day and age.  Wait around long enough and you, too, will eventually be given the honor.  Still, it’s a fine concept and Madeleine seemed to enjoy it.   

She had to fill out a brief questionnaire that she then read out loud in class one day.  Question 4 intrigued me… “Name five words to describe yourself.”  Here are the five words my daughter picked, in the order in which she wrote them down: 

Pretty.  Gentle.  Creative.  Exciting.  Smart. 

That’s a hell of a list and I agree with every one of those words.  It got me thinking about the five words I would use to describe myself.  The first four came to me relatively quickly:

Funny.  Lucky.  Angry.  Tall.

I’ve always been funny.  I’ve always been lucky.  I’ve always been angry.  And I’ve always been tall. 

The fifth word to describe myself was harder to land on, but I’ve decided to go with “Incomplete.”  That’s really what’s been driving this blog — the sense that half my life is over (whoa), but that half is yet to be lived (WHOA!). 

What can be learned from my first 40 years that might inform the next 40?  When I’m 79 and rising (and you know I will be, baby), will I pick the same five words to describe myself?  Tall seems like a lock, but what about the others?  I’d love to still be funny.  Do I also have to be angry?  I’d love to still be lucky.  Might I also be able to feel a bit more complete?

Go ahead, pick five words to describe yourself.  If a seven-year-old can do it, so can you. 

M is for Money

I like money.  A lot.  I don’t believe that money can buy happiness.  I DO believe that money can take some big uglies off the table in life and provide for interesting and enriching experiences.

I have money now, but that hasn’t always been the case.  I remember my very first job as a boy.  I was about ten years old and delivered a weekly penny saver, The Milford Reporter, in the condominium where I lived (and where my parents still live) and in the condo across the street — about 250 houses in all.  I was paid $7 a week.  My first monthly paycheck arrived early one Saturday morning, tucked on top of the pile of papers that were dropped in front of my house (how quaint).  My mom brought the envelope to me in my room, where I was still sleeping.  I opened the envelope and stared at the check in wide-eyed wonder.  $28!  I hugged my mother as though we had just won the lottery. 

In college, I worked two jobs, but it still wasn’t enough to make ends meet, so I often volunteered to be a subject in experiments run by the Psychology Department.  They were pretty benign, really, no shocking people with electrodes or anything like that.  I remember one time, I was in a room with a girl and we were waiting for the professor to come in and tell us what we were going to be doing.  (Dear Penthouse, I never thought something like this would happen to me…)  We waited and waited and eventually the professor came in and said the experiement actually involved putting two strangers in a room and observing their interactions.  He had been watching us the whole time through a two-way mirror.  We were free to go, he said, and we each got $10, I think.  I could make $10 last about a week back then.    

My first job out of college was at a small public relations agency in New York City.  I was making $22,000 a year and lived in a studio apartment that quite possibly had less square footage than my current master bathroom.  I had to rent the place in a hurry, since the guy who was going to be my roommate decided at the last minute to play soccer in Portugal instead.  A few weeks went by between the time I signed the lease (for $600 a month, if memory serves) and when I moved in.  During that time, the apartment grew in size in my mind.  I had fun imagining where I would put all my stuff.  On moving day, I eagerly unlocked the door and walked proudly into my new pad.  A few minutes later, I was slumped in a corner, crying.  It was so SMALL. 

My apartment was on the first floor, and had just one big window that looked right out onto 85th Street, which was kind of cool.  The garbage cans for the building were stored in front of my window, which was NOT so cool and, one time, nearly proved fatal.  It was the dead of night and I woke up thinking, “Christ, it’s hot in here.”  I sat up in bed, still half asleep.  “Why is it so LIGHT in here?” I thought.  I looked up to see a wall of fire in front of my window.  The garbage cans were on fire — set on fire, it turned out, by a disgruntled ex-tenant who had fallen behind on his rent and been evicted.  Since the apartment was so small, my bed was just a few feet from the window.  I could hear the glass starting to crack under the heat.  Someone started pounding on my front door.  It was the fire department.  A minute later, I was standing out on 85th Street in my underwear.

My first winter in New York was tough.  I had a coat, but it wasn’t a full-fledged winter coat.  I either was too broke or too cheap to spring for a new coat, so I wore that stupid old coat all winter long.  There is cold, friends, and then there is New York City cold.  The tall buildings funnel the wind and it can be absolutely brutal.  I froze my ass off that winter.       

On the rare occasion when I went out to dinner in those days, I typically would order pasta or, if I was feeling especially flush, the chicken.  I remember thinking, “If I can just get to thirty grand a year, I’ll be all set, I’ll never want for anything.”  Well, I got to twenty-nine grand about a year later and thirty-five grand the year after that.  Things got better.  I got a better apartment (on the third floor!) and a better coat.

People are funny about money, and I suppose I am, too.  I’m happy to tell you how much money I earned right out of college, for example, but I won’t share with you the current figure.  I have friends who I probably outearn by a mile and others who could buy and sell me in a heartbeat, but it’s never openly discussed (except when we all claim to be broke, of course, which is a riot).  Still, having been quite legitimately close to broke at one point in my life and now being quite well off by any objective standard, I can tell you that I prefer the latter. 

Will it last?  I think about that all the time.  I had a boss once who had a similar blue-collar upbringing as I did.  He told me that he went through his now-very-comfortable life waiting for someone to tap him on the shoulder and say, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?  Get back to where you belong!”  I knew exactly what he was talking about, but offer a word of warning to the guy who’s thinking about tapping me on my shoulder.  I ain’t going down easy, brother. 

Mister Softee: My Kind of Guy

Please take the following quiz…

1. Are you dissatisfied with your job?
2. Do you want more independence and control over your life?
3. Do you have more potential?
4. Are you a motivated, self-starter?
5. Are you willing to work hard during the busy ice cream season?

If you answered yes to the above five questions, do I have a job opportunity for you… as a Mister Softee franchisee!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mister Softee lately, since about half my disposable income goes toward purchasing ice cream from the Mister Softee truck that now cruises down my street every night at around 7:30 p.m. – just in time to get my kids all riled up right before bed. 

To their credit, the folks at Mister Softee make damn fine ice cream — way better than the ice cream offered by the Good Humor man, who also appears on my street these days with some regularity. 

They also have a superior theme song, though I suspect it contains notes audible only to those under the age of 12.   I can’t get my kids to sit still for 30 seconds, but they both will stand stock still at the edge of our driveway for 20 minutes, heads cocked one way and then the other, trying to ascertain whether the Mister Softee music is getting closer or farther away.  (It is almost always getting closer, by the way.)   

Our Mister Softee man is about 20 years old and looks as though his last job was as a roadie for Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam.   He’s very nice, actually, despite his many tattoos.  We call each other “boss,” as in, “You want sprinkles on that, boss?”  “Sure, make them rainbow, boss.”

My only complaint is that the Mister Softee truck tosses off some SERIOUS fumes out the back, which is understandable since it is essentially a rolling freezer (a “reefer truck” to use the lingo).  Still, do the fumes need to come out precisely at the level of a child’s head? 

I took the franchisee quiz myself and must confess that, if I had my druthers, I would rather NOT work hard during the busy ice cream season, or any other season, for that matter.  But, oh, the free ice cream… 

N is for Nicknames

A friend of mine about to enter the blogosphere asked me to help her come up with a pseudonym.  She will be blogging about dating, so wishes, understandably, to remain anonymous. It got me thinking about the nicknames I’ve had in my life, a few of which have stuck with me to this day.

The first nickname I can remember having was “Torque.”

Torque was the sidekick on the TV show “A Man Called Sloane,” starring Robert Conrad. The show aired in 1979, so I was about 11 years old. I’m not sure how I earned this nickname, since Torque was a bald, 6′5″, African-American with a detachable hand that could be converted into a wide variety of weapons and tools. Perhaps everyone was calling me “Dork” and I just misheard?

Another nickname I had in grammar school was “Frito Lay.”  This makes even less sense to me than Torque because I despise Fritos and have a hard time imagining that kids in grammar school would think to say “Frito LAY,” since that is the name of the food company that makes Fritos and Lays potato chips, among other snacks.  How would kids know to put the word “Lay” on the end of that nickname?  I can see some kind of sex joke in there now, but I don’t think that’s what was going on back then.  (What would a Frito lay be like anyway?  Crunchy and salty?)  Nevertheless, that’s how I remember it.

In college, I acquired the nickname “Leggy” and this is the one that many of my friends still use today.  (Variations include “Legs,” “Legger,” “Legs Diamond,” and “Legman.”)  The simple explanation for this nickname is that I’m 6′4″ (damn near Torque height!) and have very long legs, but, thankfully, there’s more to it than that.

I possess no athletic ability, as I’ve indicated in previous posts, but two of my roommates in college were varsity soccer players.  They went out for a run one afternoon and I decided to join them.  After about ten minutes, they were just getting warmed up and I was about ready to pass out.  They found this quite amusing and began making fun of me, running backwards and taunting me.  (They remain two of my best friends.)  With an inspired burst of energy, I sprinted past them, shrieking something to the effect of, “You can’t catch me, motherfuckers, I’m LEGGY!”  They caught up to me about 15 seconds later, of course, but the name stuck.

(In the category of “turnabout is fair play,” one of these guys, Peter, was subsequently nicknamed “Flavio,” in honor of his complete lack of smoothness with the ladies, while the other one, Dave, was christened “Sparky,” for no apparent reason whatsoever.  Flavio stuck; Sparky never quite caught on.  Dave’s kids today call Peter “Uncle Flav” and me “Uncle Leggy.”  My kids call Dave “Uncle Dave.”  Is there no justice in this world?)

I worked at a PR firm right out of college and had a mentor there who called me “T-man,” since my first name is Tom.  I called him “V-man,” even though his first name was Rick, because he took lots of vacation.  (We were not gay lovers.)

I had a girlfriend around the same time who called me “Mookie.”  We were at my parents’ house one weekend watching a Mets game with my Dad, when Mookie Wilson came up to bat.  “We thought about naming Tom Mookie,” my dad said and that was the end of that.

More recently, my sister-in-law Peggy (known as “Pucky” to us now, since that’s how my daughter first pronounced the name “Peggy”) gave me the nickname “Poppy Lo-Lo.”  We were visiting Pucky at her home in Sun Valley, Idaho.  At one point, after a few glasses of wine, Pucky and a friend of hers started dancing to “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot, which, by the way, has perhaps the greatest first line — “I like big butts and I cannot lie” — in the history of music.  This got us to thinking about what our “rapper names” might be and Pucky came up with Poppy Lo-Lo for me.

There was a little dog at this party, named Gussy.  He walked into Pucky’s house and promptly crapped on the carpet.  His rapper name?  “Poop Doggy Dog.”

O Canada

I spent the past few days in Toronto, a very lovely city that I had the pleasure of visiting once before, a few years back.  I was there for a conference and we stayed at the Four Seasons, which is about as good as it gets. 

I went to the front desk one morning to ask where I might purchase some little gifts for my two young children.  The woman at the desk promptly produced two stuffed animals.  “Perhaps they would like these?” she said.  I thanked her and told her I would come back for them at the end of the day, since I didn’t want to carry the animals with me to my meetings.  Another staffer happened to be walking by at that moment.  “I’ll bring them to your room!” he said.  They take service VERY seriously at the Four Seasons.  They focus on doing many little things right that most people (myself included) probably never notice, but which, collectively, translate into a superlative experience.  The chambermaids, for example, are trained to point the clock radio AWAY from the bed when they make your room up in the morning and then point it TOWARD your bed when they do their turn-down service in the evening.

Toronto is also home to the CN Tower, which, at 1,851feet, 5 inches, ranks as the tallest building in the world.  There are two observation decks — one 1,122 feet up in the air and another at 1,465 feet.  To put that in perspective, the second observation deck is 33 STORIES above the first one.  For the brave of heart, there is a portion of the observation deck with a glass floor, so you can see STRAIGHT DOWN to the ground below.  I was there at the same time as a group of school kids, who took great delight in jumping up and down on the glass floor, as though they were trying to knock the panels loose.  Hardy-har-har.

On Thursday night, some friends and I ate dinner at a terrific Italian restauraunt called Cafe Nervosa.  The food was very good, the vibe in the place even better.  It was loud and the tables were jammed fairly close together.  I usually find that kind of atmosphere to be annoying, but not so there. 

On Friday night, my conference ended with a fancy dinner at the Royal Ontario Museum, which humbly bills itself on its website as “one of the world’s great museums.”  (I thought Canadians were modest!)  I am not nearly cultured enough to know if this claim is valid, but I wandered around for about an hour before dinner and thought it was pretty darn cool.  There was very little logic to the place.  One room was full of dinsosaurs, the next Buddhist temples, and so on, but everything was interesting.

I flew home just this morning.  The flight lasted less than an hour or about as long as it would take me to drive from my house to New York City.  If you haven’t already, give Toronto a go. 

 

First… Boner

This is the fifth in a series of postings about the many different firsts in my life.

Relax, everyone, this post is NOT about MY first boner (or “bah-ner” as little Stewie from Family Guy so hilariously pronounced it in one episode).  I would not hesitate to share the tale with you, of course, but, alas, I have no memory of it.

Instead, I will share the next best thing… the tale of my SON’S first boner (or, to be painfully accurate, the tale of the first of my son’s boners that I was around to witness).

My son, Christian, is two years old.  I was getting him out of his diaper the other morning and there it was in all its inch-and-a-quarter-if-I’m-being-generous glory.  A chip off the old block, that kid!

I pointed it out to him.  He shrieked with laughter and shouted — I swear to God – ”My penis is huge just like Daddy’s!”

I love you, too, my boy. 

Leprechauns for Jesus

My daughter has been out of school for the past week or so, including St. Patrick’s Day.  One of her classmates paid her a visit on Monday afternoon and told her that a leprechaun had come to school the night before and left cookies for everyone.  When I got home from work, my daughter expressed dismay that she had missed it.

“There are no such things as leprechauns, you know,” I said casually and for no apparent reason.  A quick look at my daughter’s face told me that I had wandered into dangerous territory.

“No such thing as leprechauns?” Madeleine said, looking straight at me.  “Is the Easter Bunny real?  Is Santa Claus real?”

Until that moment, I had not placed leprechauns in the same “things kids believe in” category as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.  And, I must confess, I probably would not have placed the Easter Bunny in that category, either.  Clearly, though, Madeleine was a firm believer in all three.

How could that be, I thought?  How can children believe in things that we, as adults, understand so clearly to be imaginary?

Then I thought about it some more.  My daughter is in CCD (Sunday school for Catholic kids).  She is preparing now to make her First Communion and is learning that the bread and wine at Mass actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ — a guy who was born to a virgin 2,000 years ago, performed miracles, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven.

From a child’s perspective, is that any easier to swallow than the idea that a jolly old fat guy comes down the chimney to bring you presents on Christmas?  Probably not.

I assured my daughter that, yes, the Easter Bunny and Santa are, indeed, real, but I’m not quite sure I pulled it off.  I couldn’t help but smile as I said it, the way kids smile sometimes when they are lying to you.  Madeleine instantly picked up on it and gave me a smile back in return, the way adults smile sometimes when they are amused by what poor liars their children are. 

Madeleine, by the time you read this, you will know the truth about leprechauns, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and perhaps even the Big JC himself.  Who knows, maybe you do already.

T-Minus One and Counting

There is a hilarious scene in “Meet the Parents” where Owen Wilson asks Ben Stiller what line of work he’s in. Stiller, a male nurse, tells the wealthy entreprenuer Wilson that he’s in health care.

“Yeah, so you know what I’m talking about,” Wilson says in that wonderful stoner voice of his. “There are a lot of Benjamins to be made now with biotech stuff, I don’t have to tell you that. How’s your portfolio?”

“I’d say strong…to quite strong,” Stiller responds unconvincingly.

On the eve of turning 40, that about sums it up for me. I’d say that my life is strong to quite strong. But I’m not quite sure I believe it.
 
It’s been a shitty run up to the big day, I’ll tell you that much.  My seven-year-old daughter, Madeleine, had abdominal surgery on March 10 and she’s still home from school and not feeling great. She’s been sleeping with my wife in our bedroom, relegating me to Madeleine’s canopy bed — very pretty, but not quite how I expected to be spending my nights post-vasectomy. Madeleine stayed two days in the hospital, giving me a glimpse of the state of health, and health care, in our fine nation. Two kids on her ward had just been diagnosed with diabetes. Not a disease you want to be fucking with for the next seventy years of your life. One little girl was there with two shiners. Her grandmother was on her cell phone talking to DYFS — NJ’s Division of Youth and Family Services, which handles cases of child abuse. Unbelievable. The security at the hospital was non-existent. I walked from the parking lot all the way to my daughter’s bedside without once being asked who I was or why I was there. I could have snatched a kid and been gone in about ten seconds. To add insult to injury, I pinched a nerve in my neck a few days ago doing that wild and crazy activity of putting on my shirt in the morning.
 
All is not lost, however. My daughter may be home from school, but she’s also HOME and the same probably can’t be said of some of the other kids we saw on her ward. Our two-year-old has held up like a champ throughout the whole ordeal and somehow learned in the middle of all this how to ride a tricycle. (OK, he’s riding it INSIDE the house, but you do what you have to do to get by in these kinds of situations. This morning, I gave him Gummie Bears for breakfast, while my wife took Madeleine for some tests.) My mom and my mother-in-law have pitched in admirably, even changing diapers for the first time in 35+ years. One of my best friends in the whole world (and Madeleine’s godfather) came to the hospital for a visit.  And my wife and I are still speaking to each other.
 
In other words, the core has held, as it almost always has for the past 39 years and 364 days.
 
One of my loyal readers (I think there are two others) asked me if I would change the name of my blog once I turned 40. I will not. I heard a leadership guru named Bill George speak a few weeks ago and he said, “Follow your compass, not your clock.”  I may turn 40 tomorrow. But I will always be 39 and rising.