Let's Have a Playdate.

   Is it a go-go world or is it just me? Even without an actual job, modern life seems filled with  important stuff to do.
   The medical professionals tell us the importance of having and keeping friends for our overall mental, physical and emotional health. That depends on the friends. If your friends are chronic delinquents, needing bail money, borrowing your car and stuff  or calling you up drunk in the middle of the night, the effect is the opposite of what is hoped for.
  Assuming you have aquaintance of interesting and polite people, how often do you actually call one of them up and do something, just for a few laughs? We mean to, but time passes. Many of us have busy social lives, that don't count.
   Here's the Smoothstar Playdate Challenge. Call up someone you have met in the last six months and do a little fishing or take a hike or have a beer or go for a run or go see their iguana. You never know when you'll need someone to bail you out. Most of your old friends are tired of you by now.

Would you like to be a Farmer?

  Though not as romantic as secret agent, cowboy, or white hunter, farming is a career choice worth considering. Have you ever driven a tractor? I have and it's a pisser.
     A farmer is a resourceful person. Wouldn't you love to be able to fix a big machine using nothing but your wits, a sledge hammer and an acetelyne torch. You must master every trade and be an inventor. You can face the elements with a firm set of the chin. Those denim bib overalls flatter every figure. Worn without a shirt, or with a sharp white sleeveless t,  for guys or gals, I can't think of a sexier wardrobe piece.
   The only downside is the early hours. If you're not a morning person, skip the dairy farming, maybe growing weed would suit you better. I'm good with beets ,collards and green beans, general truck farming.
   If you have a small suburban lot, rototill the whole damn thing. You can't eat grass, man.

All About Weddings.

   Spring doesn't only bring mud and fish. The onslaught of the wedding season is upon us. With it, comes questions of etiquette and fashion. What will I wear and how will I act? If the happy couple says casual, fellas wear a suit or you'll be the only one not wearing a suit. Same goes for you gals, casual means a fancy dress, not a tube top, cut offs and flip flops.
 How to act? Free  hard liquor. Hmm ? Just because you are dressed as gentle folk, after a dozen or more gin and tonics, your inner chimp may still  make an appearance. Never pretty.
   You may find yourself seated with vague acquaintances or outright strangers. Make an effort, but don't assume your coarser material will be a hit.
   Here's my formula. Your wedding gift will be two hundred bucks if I have to attend, five hundred, if I don't. Best wishes for your domestic bliss. 

I wouldn't go back to high school for a million bucks.

   I wouldn't let Mike Tyson punch me in the head for a million bucks either. Money may or may not buy happiness, but it surely doesn't buy back your scrambled brains or self respect. Was high school really that painful, confusing, and humiliating? Yes and no.
   We have already learned to use the yardstick of, "I cried because I had no pants, until I met a man with no ass." That works some of the time. We count our blessings by the score. Even say, knowing what you know now, could you withstand the systematic and grinding boredom, punctuated by the terrors of sitting stoned in Spanish class while being grilled in a language you don't understand or being queried about sines and cosines for two years running? Not for money, perhaps under the threat of death.
   Some things must be repeated. Mercifully, the Michael Spinks fight isn't one of them.

That which must never be spoken of.

    Secrets and sore subjects. As part of our ongoing series on mental and emotional health issues, today we look into the heart of darkness. What is a life style that doesn't include a periodic stock taking? I'm sure we all have sordid incidents in our past that don't need actual repeating.  Although you may be at a loss for topics at a cocktial party, that is not a license to bare your sullied soul at some other poor guest's expense. Resist, at all costs, the temptation to discuss anything but the most shallow aspects of your personal life. Many young moderns wear their hearts on their sleeves.
    Enjoy your personel stock taking, learn from your mistakes, but for the love of the merciful Christ, don't tell me about it. Amen brother.

Birdwatching. Not for the birds.

   Birdwatching has a bad reputation. Dorky folks, wearing ass pants and pith helmets, white kneesocks and brown clunky shoes, gawking through binoculars, bird guide books in hand.. Fashion aside, birdwatching is cool. Birds outdoors, as opposed to pet animals, are very enjoyable. The tufted titmouse ( an uber cool name) noshing and nibbling at a bird feeder, has a much more calming effect on the psyche than a fist sized, stanking pet frog or an anxious, shrieking dog, my indoor animals.
    There are the quiet satisfactions of a crew of various sparrows and doves,  and then there's the big whizbang moments, when you see the Baltimore Oriole or the Rose Breasted Grosbeak. They are trippy birds that you can't believe are so wild looking. Don't get me started on the humming bird. Dag, that's elegance.

Lying. Bad habit or good idea?

   We usually don't discuss issues of character, or issues at all in this forum, but I will make a slight exception today. They say honesty is the best policy. Eh ....could be.
   When is a lie not a lie? When its a ridiculously gross exaggeration of an incident, at the time, humiliating and painful. It is re-told and made into somerthing you can live with, because it's played for laughs. When someone casts a jaundiced eye your way, as you go on and on about some hooey, face them head on and say firmly, "What?".
    Grant the same leeway to those you meet, that you expect yourself. Keep to yourself the thought,  " Whoah, what a pile! " Just nod and smile.