Hi. It’s me. OB. The Middle-Aged Wit Guy. Not middle-aged white guy. That’s not a typo. I said wit guy. And that’s guy as in man, not Guy as is the French name for Guy. That’s pronounced Gee. And calling myself The Middle-Aged Wit Gee just sounds stoopid.

If you don’t know who I am, you’ll catch on. If you remember me from back in the day, it’s good to be back. Good to see you again and good to be seen.

You’ve aged. I’ve aged. We’ve aged. We’re aging. Did you know that today is the youngest you’ll ever be? I’m in my late 40s now. Well past the halfway mark. Farther from life’s commencement & closer to the conclusion.

I love it. The aging bit. Not the death bit. Although I’ve never tried death and you can only do it once. Kind of like losing your virginity…you have high hopes it will be everything you’ve hoped it to be, but then she falls off hood of your mom’s twenty-year old Honda Accord and breaks her wrist on the movie theater parking lot’s pot-holed asphalt and it’s off to her parents’ house for help. With your best intentions you ring the door bell and wake up her dad. He comes to the door. He sees her torn clothes, twisted appendage, and your raging boner poking through your Dockers. It’s over. Well done, kiddo. She’s sent to the ER, then the nun factory, and you bump into her 30 years later buying grocery store sushi in Cedar Rapids, Iowa because why wouldn’t you? Oh, and her name changed from Margaret Smith to Sister Sasha, which is a pretty hot name for a nun. But how would I know? This never happened to me or Margaret-turned-Sasha. Never happened. Completely made this up. Every bit fake. Nuns don’t have the web, do they?

Where was I? Yes. Aging. I think aging is a wonderful thing. Sure there are the physical downsides. I have to wear glasses when I read and write. My dad belly is here to stay. But I remain positive because all my scores are exceptionally high (cholesterol, blood pressure, alcohol consumption) and I can still enjoy a run. Just last week I went out for a long run. 500 yards! Read it and weep.

My brekky used to be eggs and bacon. Now it’s smoked sardines & apples. Fairly delicious if you’re a cat.

Ok, so my body is slowing down. But my mind is getting sharper. Not sharper in the sense that I finally understand long-division. Sharper in the sense that I am becoming more aware of what’s happening in the world, in my life, and how it has the potential to destroy me slowly. Death by a million cuts. Frog in the warming pot, so to speak.

For example, I am a modern dad in the sandwich generation. This means next Wednesday while I take Zoom calls from the car, I will take my young children to the dentist in the morning, and my 74 year old disabled mother to the dentist that afternoon. Different dentists of course. One focuses on new teeth coming in. The other focuses on the old teeth falling out. Opposites sides of town.

What’s more…my wife will be travelling on Wednesday and I won’t have time to cook dinner for my two sons, so I will dish out $40 at McDonald’s on three sugar/salt/fat combos because some humorless Guatemalan from the other side of the wall (not that wall) is now making $20/hour to bark into his headset “jew want ant-ink else?”

This stuff is stressful. It can kill me. It can kill you. But we won’t let it, will we?

10 years ago I wrote a blog about surviving corporate America.

This is a blog about surviving as a middle-age man in America.

There is a mental health epidemic (or is it pandemic? I get confoosed!) in American men. Record high feelings of loneliness, depression, financial concerns, being useful, the complexity of our roles in our families (and the real kicker for me…knowing that if my nuts hang any lower, that I’ll need to leave the house wearing three shoes), are degrading our ability to enjoy life and be the best we can be for our friends and families.

Part guide-book, part cook-book, part bathroom poop book. This is OB 2.0.

It’s good to be here again. 

~OB