How come the more hair I keep on my head the balder I look? A little hair looks so bad on me. It’s like a really cruel joke that I have to shave my head more and more frequently just so I look really bald. What the actual fuck. I wake up early to shave my head, so the top of my head doesn’t look a par 3 on a New England golf course in April. Oh, and the hair on my head won’t grow normal, but whoever is playing this cruel joke on me has no problem giving me the fastest growing back of the neck hair on planet earth. In lots of ways I feel like I won the lottery in life, but hair is not one of those “wins” for me. Going to Sunday dinner and starring at my brother’s full god damn head of hair is a really nice touch. All the males in my family are completely bald except for him. Even his beautiful 4-month-old son has better hair than me.

Getting old is such a mind fuck.  Physically of course, everyone feels it.  You wake up in pain and you didn’t fall asleep in pain, but it’s the mental stuff that is really screwing with me.  Even in my writing.  I will get half done with a story and with a tear in my eye I remember I already wrote and published this story a year ago.  Wait, so I already wrote about my alcoholic father?   I wish maybe I only did that once, but no way.  It’s a super common occurrence.  When it happens, I think about my Grandmother and her Alzheimer’s and I panic thinking that is my fate.  It’s just one of those fears that completely paralyzes me.  What I had to watch my Mom go thru during that time I don’t wish on anyone.  This is going to be a weird one when I rewrite this story in a few months and I get déjà vu about my déjà vu.  Like I said, getting old sucks.  

I golf now like I am retired from work. Almost once a week for the entire summer.  I don’t like to drink on the course because I want to remember and enjoy the day.  I bring extra waters and sunscreen and an extra pair of socks in case it rains, or I need to take a shit in the woods.  I have more golf shirts than gym shirts.  Did I just wake up one day an old man?  How did I not see this happening?  My Dad gave me a golf shirt earlier in the week and when I got in the car to leave, I pulled it out and physically said “Hell Yeah”.  Who the hell am I am where did 20-year-old Mark go?

Just this past weekend I went to friend of mines son’s “grad” party.  If you say graduation party you aren’t cool by the way, that’s a free tip from me.  I learned the hard way from my girls.  Anyway, after it was over a few of them were going to another house for a drink.  I stopped at home first and made myself a large cranberry juice so I would drink that instead of a beer because I didn’t want to be hungover the next day.  I hate myself. 

I used to use yard work as I way to sober up or get rid of a crippling hangover, now I plan my weekend nights around the yard project I created for myself. I bought a specific hat I wear for yard work. Again, I hate myself.

Let’s make a deal, when you read a story that you know I’ve already told let’s just keep that between us.  Think of me as your drunk buddy who tells that same damn story over and over.  You never tell him, you smile and pretend it’s the first time you heard it.  Because you are a good person…Let’s agree to be good people here.  Put that heart emoji on my post just like the last very very similar story about the time I shit myself in New Hampshire. 

If I remember, I’ll keep writing.