Ups and downs

My daughter, her husband (still have to get used to saying that) and a friend went to Disneyland today. I’m assuming while they’re enjoying the overpriced food and mouse-logo sweatshirts you need a co-signer to purchase, they’ll make time to ride the rollercoaster in Disneyland’s sister park, California Adventure.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when the sight of a rollercoaster filled me with excitement. The louder the screams from passengers, the more I wanted to be in the front row.

I was fearless. I was invincible. I was much younger.

But that was then and this is now. Today, you won’t catch me near one of those headache-inducing, nausea-promoting contraptions even if someone was bribing me with a lifetime supply of front row Springsteen tickets.

Well, maybe then.

For starters, the physics are no longer my friend. Once upon a time, the sheer force of a 60 mph corkscrew was exhilarating. But now it’s like my brain sends out a mass email to all my nerve endings saying, “Code red! We’re not 20 anymore! Shut it down!” Suddenly my head is whiplashing through loops and corkscrews.

By the way, Loops & Corkscrews was my favorite childhood cereal. SWIDT?

And another thing. What ever happened to the classic rollercoaster that just went really fast, dropped steeply, and maybe had one loop? Modern coasters flip you upside down, tilt you sideways, and sometimes even hang you face-down.

“Why is the sky on my left now?”

When I was younger, my balance was like a rock. I could spin in circles for hours and walk away like I was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. Now, after one helix on a modern coaster, my inner ear stages a mutiny. Another gift of aging.

I also never want to be that rider. The person who gets off the ride looking like they survived Oceanic 815. Pale, sweaty, clutching their stomach, mumbling, “Never again.”

I’ve reached the age where I’m okay saying, “I’ll just eat a churro and watch.”

Here’s the thing: I still love thrills—just different ones. Simpler ones, like parallel parking on the first try or remembering to bring my reusable bags to Trader Joe’s. I even get a tiny adrenaline rush when my phone battery is at 2% and I find a charger in time.

Who needs 10-story drops when life is already full of heart-pounding moments?

There’s a certain wisdom that comes with age—or at least that’s what I tell myself when I pass on the rollercoaster and opt for the carousel instead. I’m happy waving from the sidelines, holding everyone’s jackets while the rest of the group screams themselves silly. At least I know I’ll be headache-free and standing upright at the end of the day.

I don’t think of my recently found rollercoaster aversion as a loss. More of a shift in priorities. I’m grounding myself and I’m okay with it.

And if you need me, I’ll be at the churro stand.

Fall back

Ooops I did it again.

I'm actually not a clumsy person, but you wouldn't know it from this post. Or this one. Subconsciously it may be because I believe in the rule of three more strongly than I thought, because this will be the third post I've done about me falling hard and flat on my back like a ton of bricks.

Fat, Jewish bricks.

Here's what happened.

I was minding my own business, doing award-winning, crowd-pleasing, results-getting, competition-killing, raise-worthy work at my bedroom desk for my 100% remote job with the world's leading cybersecurity company. In the course of that vitally important work, I make it a point to stay hydrated.

As one does.

Since it was just after noon, I started out to the kitchen to see if there was something good hiding out in the fridge for lunch. But before I got there, I turned around and went back to my desk to clear two water glasses (see hydration above) and put them in the dishwasher.

Are you with me so far? We're coming up on the part where the hardwood floor breaks my fall. And almost my back.

As I reached for the glasses, my very fashionable yet reasonably priced Vionic flip-flops got caught between the plastic desk chair mat and the area rug it overlaps. I started falling forward, water glasses in hand. Then I thought, let's see if I can put my early years as a danseur with the New York City Ballet to good use—if I turn, maybe I can slow my roll by grabbing the edge of the bed. The glasses went flying from my hands. I tried grabbing the bed and missed, which isn't easy cause that sucker is a two kids, two adults and two dog accommodating California King.

Thanks to the inertia, momentum, velocity and enormous amount of gravity at work, that giant thud you heard a little after noon PST today was me.

As luck—my luck—would have it, I was home alone: my daughter has a big time advertising job and had to go into her real office to work, and the wife had to take our German Shepherd Ace to the vet for some blood work. So I laid there a minute on the floor, my back screaming every swear word it knows at me, and tried to figure out how I was going to stand up.

The answer was fast. I sat up, grabbed the bed for leverage and got myself up off the floor. With that one move, it quickly became apparent my back wasn't going to be done swearing and screaming at me any time soon.

Just like my high school girlfriend.

Fortunately I had an acupuncture appointment this afternoon, so I managed to lower myself into my thirteen-year old Lexus ES350 (I really need a car with higher ground clearance) and went. And instead of working on my feet (long story, another post), he worked on my back.

It felt better for a little while afterwards. I don't know if it was physical or mental, but you can say that about most things with me.

So tonight, it's the heating pad on and off every twenty minutes, trying to keep the grunting sounds every time I move to a reasonable volume and not moving around too much. With any luck it'll start to feel better in the morning, and I'll be in for a quick recovery in the coming days.

Of course, the bad news is my Cirque du Soleil audition is off for now.

Cirque Du Coronavirus

Pandemic shmandemic. I roam through life unfrightened and undeterred.

Case in point: I took my first post-coronavirus panic outing yesterday. The family and I decided to spend the afternoon in a closed tent with about 2,000 of our closest, hopefully uninfected friends. We saw VOLTA, the current Cirque Du Soleil production in their big top, which is set up at Dodger Stadium.

It had everything to make the CDC and World Health Organization shake their hazmat-covered heads.

Crowds of people. Closed space. Different nationalities. Surfaces like chairs and armrests that've been touched by thousands of people before us. Port-a-potties that, shall we say were less than spotless.

It was a recipe for disaster. And yet, we all seemed to have gotten out just fine. There was a vague awareness of everyone being a little more cautious not to be in each other's faces, and no matter when you looked it was always rush hour at the hand washing stations outside the restrooms.

I fully expected lots of empty seats from people who'd decided not to venture out in public. I was also sure I'd see surgical masks everywhere I looked. I only saw one, and there wasn't an empty seat in the house.

Only two things reminded everyone of the current cautions. First was before the show when a young child sneezed, and every head within earshot snapped around to look at him waiting to see what was going to happen next. The other was the clown who came down the aisle before the show, and interacted with me by running his gloved hand up and down my sleeve. It made me a little nervous, although the coronavirus was probably the least of the reasons why.

The show was great, and I couldn't help but be amazed by how similarly built the performers and I were. It was like looking in a mirror.

I definitely don't want to minimize the virus and the cautions to be taken, but life just can't stop because of it. And besides, the precautions aren't that hard to abide by.

For starters I've been washing my hands like Howard Hughes since I can remember. And because I've never been a fan of knuckle crushers or sweaty palmed frat boys who shake my hand like it's a dry water pump in rural Alabama, I'm just swell with handshaking going the way of the Zune. Bottles of Purell? Check the center console of my car - I've pretty much cornered the market.

So here's my take on it all: with or without the virus, life is a high-wire act. Let's not go out of our way to turn it into a real circus.

Not clowning around

Tonight's entry is not so much a blogpost as an unpaid ad for Cirque du Soleil.

I took the family to see Luzia, the latest Cirque show to tour Southern California, back around Christmas (Remember Christmas? You should be seeing decorations for it any day now) when they were at Dodger Stadium. We've seen all their shows, but this was by far, for me, the favorite.

So much so that I got us all tickets to see it again today at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

It's astonishing how creative this troupe is. A breathtaking combination of dance, art, comedy, music, song, athleticism, skill, daring, courage and discipline, Luzia is a vision. A dream. A moment out of time. A magical encounter with something true.

The beauty of Luzia is it doesn't allow anyone to be a passive viewer. It demands you feel something. Whether it's wonder, entertained, thrilled, inspired or transported, you simply can't escape its otherworldly pull.

Naturally, with all the spectacularly fit, athletic performers and lithe bodies doing incredible feats requiring uncommon strength—flying through the air, hanging from a single chord from the top of the tent, jumping from one giant swing and launching each other across the stage onto another swing —it was a lot like looking in a mirror. So much so I had to keep reminding myself I was an only child.

I don't know how much longer the show is in Orange County, but if you check the Google I'm sure you can find out. I'd check for you, but the less I type the words Orange County before the midterms the better.

At the center of the story is a clown, although not the typical Emmett Kelly clown you might picture. He is our guide through it all, and has a moment of poignancy at the end that is nothing less than beautiful.

I'm hoping to see Luzia a third time before it packs up and heads to the next city. My compulsive nature (have I mentioned Springsteen, Vegas, Breaking Bad and sushi lately?) makes me want to see it again and again.

Working in advertising agencies as long as I have, you might've heard or read where I've described them as a circus. And they definitely are.

Sadly, none of them are as beautiful, artful or as magical as this one.

Thriller

I was in Vegas this past weekend.

Usually when I'm there, I can be found in my natural habitat - the end of a crap table rolling the bones.

But this time it was a family weekend, the last one before young Mr. Spielberg heads off to one of the best film schools in the country, and the pricey tuition that implies (I was hoping to win part of his tuition playing craps, but was forced to move on to Plan B - working the rest of my life).

Anyway, to celebrate the start of his film career we decided to see a couple of shows. One of them was the Cirque du Soleil production of Michael Jackson ONE.

Now I always liked a lot of his music, but I never would've called myself a fan. But man, slap me twice and call me Sally, this show was spectacular. Music blaring, dancers gyrating, lasers flashing, it had all the flash and spectacle you'd expect from Jackson and Vegas.

It's a multi-media show, and during a lot of it you have no idea where to look because there's so much going on. Then suddenly, there's one heartbreaking clip that almost takes your breath away: young Michael, in the Jackson 5 days, singing I'll Be There. It's a lump in your throat, not a dry eye in the house moment that doesn't let go.

There was also the first time the world saw him break out his signature moonwalk move on the 25th Anniversary of Motown special. In case you'd forgotten what an electric performer he was.

For all the energy and precision the onstage dancers moved with - and it was considerable - it was an impossible job to ask them to keep up with the footage of Jackson dancing with the intensity and deliberateness he did. He simply moved in a way that can't be duplicated.

No doubt because of his personal life and predilections there are many reasons to dislike Michael Jackson. And one great production doesn't make any of them go away.

But for one incredibly entertaining night, for the first time, I was a fan.