jonathan friesen

Big Men, Little Planes

I am a six foot, five inch man with exactly one joint in my leg. That would be my knee. That is where my leg bends. There, and only there. I cannot fold my leg over, then over again. I can bend it once.

This is a nice arrangement when I play soccer or run or do any physical thing. My body only hurts in one place. But on a small airplane, it is a horrible situation. 

Big men, little planes. Do you know that big men are usually seated next to large men? Overflowing men? Men with mid-sections that burst forth over that teeny armrest and sardine you against the window. They don't seem to notice you are there.

I can handle being flattened. My legs can't. They need somewhere to stretch. The large man does not allow for this. So my knees rise up to my chin, and I hug myself for the duration of the flight.

Big men also sit behind weenies. Yes, the person in front has a RIGHT to push back in his/her chair, but out of courtesy I always peek behind before I do that. I hate to crunch the human behind. People sitting in front of big men don't have concern for big men, they lean back and love it. Blimp beside, Lounger in front, small planes are cruel to big men.

The people sitting behind big men cough. Not once, but hundreds of times. The people behind big men cough on the big man head, especially if the big man is bald. We feel their sickly breeze. But we can't turn to suggest covering. We are pinned by blubber and form a human bed for the Lounger in front. So we enjoy the sickly breeze and breathe as little as possible.

Big men, little planes. A horrible combination.

Purpose

So I hooked up our converter box to watch the Olympics. I'm doing that right now. Snowboard Cross just ended, and we're stuck in men's figure skating. 

I say stuck because I have a hard time staying awake during figure skating. I think I know why.

They skate without purpose.

What's the use of spinning twenty times? They end up where they started. What's the use of jumping and twisting? They'll just skate back after they land. Take the guy I'm watching. He's spinning, wait, yep now he grabbed his skate, still spinning, just touched his head, kept spinning. Okay, now he's done. It's the same guy. What's the purpose?

See in the other sports--skiing or luge or hockey or whatever--the athletes are trying to be the first, or score the most. There's a purpose. Spinning and jumping. I don't get it.

My wife does. She can sit and watch them be purposeless for hours. (Now I admit, this Japanese skater who came on has my vote, but that's just because Jimi Hendrix is making him look good.)

I think they need to add something to this mens skating. Give it purpose. Maybe five or six skaters have to skate at the same time. While they leap, they try to take each other out. That would be cool. Or maybe the ice is shaped like the half pipe. Let them skate their routines, but make them do that while flying three stories high.

Let me be clear. I'm not knocking their skill. If I walked across the ice I'd bite it. They look like they are in good shape (but mighty short) and I appreciate their ability. I just don't see the purpose.

And another thing. Are they required to wear outfits that look like someone just hacked at them with a scissors and sprinkled them with sparkles? Do the judges dig that? Oh well, who am I to judge?

Maybe they should be required to skate with a hockey stick and whack at a puck now and then. 

Anything for some purpose. But the crowd and my wife seem to like it as is. Maybe that's purpose enough. 

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

In the past month, Jonathan Friesen confesses to the following High Crimes and misdemeanors:

1. He threw a AAA battery in the garbage can. It will remain acidic in the dump for a gazillion years.

2. He burned a plastic bottle, and emitted toxic fumes into the air that both his children and yours will breath.

3. Has refused to install any funky new light bulbs because they freak his eyes out, but this is no excuse. His energy consumption is deplorably high.

4. Maintains a house temperature of 70 degrees, far above the recommended 68.

What should be done to a man like this? On the flip side, Jonathan Friesen:

1. Manually opens and closes his garage door in order to lesson energy consumption.

2. Commutes exactly fourteen feet from bed to work each day, for zero emissions.

3. Never speeds. That's right. Never. 55 in a 55. 30 in a 30. It's an obsessive trait, but it drastically reduces my car's negative influence on the world.

4. Wears the same stupid gray pullover most every day, thereby limiting the number of loads of laundry that needs washing.

What can you say about a guy who is into organic farming and gas-guzzling trucks, who composts his foods and chucks old cell phones in the trash? He's a walking contradiction, a fence-sitter, a hypocrite . . .

He's me. 

Fuzzy Brooms

I don't know who decides what gets to be an Olympic sport. I'd like to decide. There'd be a host of stupid ones, things that take no athletic skill per se. But I won't list them here, because I'm interested in who chose the events I'm watching now.

The winter chooser is a certified nut. If you're not flying upside down or twisting or slipping down slopes at 100 mph, it's a no go. It used to be that hockey seemed the most dangerous sport winter had to offer; now a puck that can dent your face feels like low risk entertainment.

But at least I understand the winter sport chooser. He's a psychotic madman with no boundaries . . .

Then I see the dudes with the fuzzy brooms. One guy shoves an oversized hockey puck on the ice and the other guys sweep and sweep until the big puck comes to a gentle stop. No flipping, or twirling or 100 mph objects-there's not even any running. Just a puck-shaped rock and a bunch of guys with brooms. 

Curling. That's it. They call it curling. What is that? Who slipped that in there? It's like winter lawn bowling but weirder 'cause of the fuzzy brooms. It's a sport that doesn't belong with the others. Did it get slipped in there when the psycho wasn't paying attention? 

Shoot, I could compete at the Olympic level in Curling. We do it all the time:

I hear the garage door. (I yell for the kids, my teammates to grab their brooms.)

The car door slams. (My wife is getting nearer, "Quick, sweep the floor, sweep, sweep!")

My lovely walks in, stops, and looks at the floor. (The stone has landed, and even if we didn't get the joint clean, it always goes better if we look like we're working.)

Yep, my kids and I have curling down. I guess to make it legal, someone would need to grease my wife's feet and shove her, and we'd need the right kind of fuzzy brooms. But we should be able to find a sponsor to provide us with all those things.

"Representing the United States of America, and winning the gold medal in curling, The Friesen family." Oh how proud we could make you, our countrymen. Sure, her greased feet would keep my wife off the podium, but she probably wouldn't be big on this idea anyway.

Vancouver, here we come.

Beware the Camel Man

My wife and I were traveling across Jordan, and we reached the ancient city of Petra. You've probably seen it without knowing it--you get there through this split in hundred foot rock. Indiana Jones used it for one of his flicks, the one with Sean Connery and the search for the Holy Grail. The Grail was in Petra. Anyway, we were walking around the outside of the split, with plans to enter the next day.

A man on a camel rode up to my wife. My pretty blond wife. 

"Would you like to see Petra?" You need to imagine an accent thick as soup. 

We were on the backside of a disagreement, so I wasn't so sure of my wife's answer. Let's find out how it went:

She pointed over her shoulder in my direction. "That's my husband."

"Not much of a man." The first thing I did is check my fly. How's that for dumb? He continued. "We will ride the camel, and then I will show you my tent."

Yes, I bet he will. I should have stepped in long before this point, but see, we still weren't talking due to the argument, and it took me awhile to get the motor running.

"Excuse me," I walked up, my fly zippered. "Is there a problem?"

"None at all. I was just talking with this woman."

No, you weren't, you tanned, camel-riding, wife-stealing monster. That's what I was thinking. 

"Oh." That's what I said.

"No, thank you. But thanks for asking." Did you hear that? She thanked him for trying to camel-nap her! Not once but twice. Camel man loped away, but now we had fresh ammunition.

"You didn't even stick up for me!"

"You thanked him for the harem invite!"

Oh, how strange we are. That happened fifteen years ago, and it's burned in my head. Why tell you? Well, I know of a husband and a wife and a camel man. You probably know a trio as well.

Husband, speak up!

And wife, stop listening to the camel man. 

Not Lazy, Courageous

That's right, I'm not lazy, I'm courageous. I believe that most men are. A case in point:

Today was garbage day. Big deal, right? It's a little different when your garbage can is 1/2 mile from your house and it's -20 windchill, but I digress. It was garbage day. My wife taps my shoulder at 6:30 a.m. I have fifteen minutes to get all our junk from the nice, cuddly garage down to the bitter cold street.

I'm in a hurry, so I hoist the two filled garage cans into the back of the family van. But oops! The family van was left out last night. Will it start? Yes! It starts. Here's when it happens. I hop in. My windshield is frosted over. Thick, you-can-not-see-through-it-anywhere frost. The scraper is by my feet. What does a man do?

Nothing. I roll down the window, and like a lap dog in summer, stick my head out and try to navigate my snake-like driveway. 

So I think to my self, self, why didn't you scrape a little eye hole? You had time. It would be easier. It would be safer . . .

Ahaa! There it is. Oh sure it looks like a lazy move, but deep inside, I was testing my limits, seeing if I was up to the challenge. Could I, practically blind, complete the garbage maneuver? Answer: yes.

We do this a lot. It's 3 a.m. and we wake up, bladders on fire. We must go. We must go. You may think we resist because it is so cozy under the covers. Not the real man. We are courageous, pushing the limits of our bodies, proving again to ourselves that we have bladders of steel.

This personal testing is everywhere. I'm in a hotel, relaxing before giving a talk. I'm watching TV and the dumb remote does not work. Do I get up to change the channel? No, I do not. I continue to stare at the Home Shopping Network. Lazy? Only to the untrained eye. In truth, I'm testing the bounds of what a male can stand. This is heroism and courage at its limit.

So the next time you see a man in a state of inactivity and you're tempted to think he's a slacker, remember, he may be pushing his body to the limit. He may well be courageous . . .

Or he might just be lazy.

The Color Career Test

So I was messing around on the Yahoo homepage, reading the news headlines and watching the Super Bowl commercials. See I missed the game, so I had to catch the exciting parts. I noticed a link that said something like: First ever color-based career test. Take it now.

Seemed easy enough. No words, just colors. It was easy. The first question? Which of thee colors do you most like to look at? Then it showed three boxes. Red. Yellow. Blue. Easy. Red and yellow annoy me, blue is peaceful. Click. 

There were five or six more questions. Each one had more colored boxes than the previous one, ending in a grand ranking of nice to look at colors, about sixteen options in all. The claim was that this bugger was over 80% accurate in identifying jobs you would really enjoy, enjoy, endure and hate--something like that. It gave the top and bottom fifty, so one hundred jobs.

I'm a writer. My results? Turns out I don't like that job. I speak a lot too. I don't dig that either. I guess I'm big into clerical, acting, teaching and forestry. Forestry. I have camped three times that I remember. Forestry. 

Let's see. My answers? Blue, green, green, brown, blue, black. There is a blue sky and there are green leaves, brown trunks, blue . . . skies again and black, um, bears. Yes, there are black bears in the woods. So yes, forestry fits.

Acting? Blue . . . The Blues Brothers, Green: The Green Mile, Brown: Brownhog Day (I know, I'm taking a few liberties here, but the groundhog was brown), Black: Black Hawk Down. So yeah! Acting! That fits too.

So maybe the test is more accurate than I thought. I'm in the wrong field! Take writing. Inside job. Think I ever even SEE the blue sky? No. Green. Am I rolling in green? Uh, no. Brown. Any dirt on these hands? Nope. Only Calluses. Black. Not to be redundant, but am I in it? No, it's red, baby, deep red. There's no way I'm supposed to be a writer.

Forestry, here I come.

Relation Ships

There are days when my marriage feels like a kayak. Have you ever been in one of those? They're death traps, I tell you. I squeezed my 6'5'' frame into one and started down the Rum. 

"If you flip over, just relax, and push yourself out." That's what my "friend" said.

Well I did flip. There is no way to relax. It's suffocating and drowning. Marriage can feel like that.

There are also speedboat days. We zip along so fast, it's hard to tell if my wife is even in the boat with me. I sure can't hear her above the roar of the engine. So we hold on tight and pray we don't fall out. Seems a lot of days are like that.

We also have our fair share of ocean liner days. We're not moving fast. It's not real loud. I just can't seem to find her. She's doing her thing, I'm doing mine. I know she's her somewhere. There are plenty of lifeboats so I'm not worried about losing her. Still, it's a sort of parallel floating--same direction, no connection.

Then every once in a while, we have our submarine days. Seems we wake up underwater and no matter what we say, there is no chance of breaking the surface. Life is cold and dark and murky, and there's that nagging sense that a really big torpedo is on our tail.

But more and more, we have canoe days. And I tell you there is nothing else like these. They're peaceful (relatively, I do smack the hull with my paddle now and then), we are heading the same direction, and I can hear ever word she says. I can oar for a bit, then she can, and when she's tired, I can take it over once more. And when we both get tired, we can lay back and let the waves carry us. It's a great way to travel.

Problem is, my kids really dig speedboats.

Unreal Moments

I'm sure there's a nice big word for the moments I'm about to describe, but I don't know it, so I'll call them how they feel: unreal. I had one today skiing with the fam.

First the scene: The older two kids and my wife cross-country skiing on a beautifully mild day. My son, then my wife, then my daughter, then me. It's a late afternoon snake through the woods, and there is nobody else on the trail. There are no sounds but the occasional crunch of a pole through crusty snow and my breath. Life is beautiful.

This is, in itself, an unreal moment, but it's not the one I'm thinking of--that one came somewhere during the second half of our outing, somewhere when my thoughts left the snow and the trees and landed on my wife. Here was the thought: I'm married. Unbelievable. 

This actually strikes me as nutty more often than you would think for a guy pushing twenty years. I mean, maybe on the wedding night, maybe even that whole first year, but this far down the pike? I should be beyond surprise.

But I'm not. Every once in a while, the craziness hits. Holy mackerel, I'm married. And not only am I married, I'm married to her. She is planning on spending the rest of her earthly life with me. She had other options. What was she thinking? I wonder if she finds her marriage to me a bit unreal too. Or maybe I'm just really slow.

Then I look at the kids, two of my three, gliding in front and the unreal thought intensifies. Those are MY kids. I had something to do with them. I'm partially responsible for their existence. These kids call me Daddy. Crazy.

I think the unreality must mean I didn't expect too much from this life. I was aiming low. Get a job. Hang out with friends. Watch a lot of Gilligan's Island. And somewhere along the way, I cleared the high bar. I had to have, today the proof skied right in front of me.

My unreal moments always leave me different. More overwhelmed, but more thankful. That's the big one. I leave an unreal moment thinking, what did I do to deserve her and him and her and him. 

It's not a profound post. I don't expect I'll rake in the comments or the off-blog notes I often get. Not on this one. It doesn't matter, because the most unreal thought hit ME today, and they're all peacefully sleeping, and I am so thankful.

Old

When did it happen? When did I get old? Now right here there will be a chorus of well-meaning nonsense.

"You're only as old as you feel."

"Old is only a state of mind."

"The previous generation's forty is the new thirty." Way too much Oprah watching goes into that one.

You notice that none of these deal in hard, cold facts. Fact: I have traveled around he sun forty-two times. Fact: My wife has traveled . . . more. Fact: My youthful fillings are now loose. Fact: The arthritis in my thumbs is a pain. I could go on, but the sum total of my facts equals the following conclusion. I'm old. And if I'm not, I feel at least as though I'm on the path.

Now, here's another fact. I'm now older than most of our friends--friends here meaning those who have kids the ages of our kids. We started having kids late, so now the fine people we hang out with when our kids meet are younger, vibrant, not a speck of arthritis to be seen. And I bet they even have those new clear fillings. No mouths filled with mercury. That's for old guys, like me.

Hair? Gone. Memory? Spotty, at times. Energy level? Peaked. You can try all the psycho-babble you want about state of mind, but you can't deny reality. I'm old. 

Here's another old thing: When I was young, check this out, I'd stop off at MacDonald's and order THREE Fillet-o-fish sandwiches and one Big Mac. I'd eat these at midnight. My stomach (we'll leave the arteries out of it) was firm and flat. I'm now a vegan. I eat rabbit food. I exist on leafy green things and nuts and berries, and from where I sit, there's a visible pouch where the firm gut used to be. What did I tell you? Old.

But I'll say this, and it may not fit with the first half of this drivel, I don't mind being old, not one bit (well, the arthritis part is irritating). When I was twenty-one, I was an idiot. Indisputable. You could make a case that I haven't changed, but I think you'd lose. Also, now that I've entered into my old phase, I'd don't have to dread any more stages. I mean, ten years from now? Old. Twenty? Old. Thirty years from now? I'll be old, and still only seventy-two.

Old gets a bad rap. If I called you old, you wouldn't like it. You'd probably think I was saying you LOOK old. We've messed this all up. Old ideas. Bad. New ideas. Good. Old-fashioned. Bad. Enlightened. Good. Maybe it's the word. Old is a heavy word. It's weighty and depressing to say. Young is a light word. It's springy. Try it. Say it fast and it leaps out of your mouth.

As I see it, this push to stay young, talk young, act young, think young, is exactly backwards. The quicker you succeed at becoming old, the faster you can get on with the best years of your life. 

Earlier today, I dragged my old carcass onto my four-wheeler and went pleasure riding with my girl. We laughed and fish-tailed and plowed up and down snowbanks. Then it was rabbit hunting with my son, an intense sword fight with my other son, and a wrestling match with both of them. Finally, it was off to hang with some great friends this evening, followed by some, well, private time with my lovely wife.

This being old is really tough on a guy.