Tuesday March 4, 2025 Untwisting Clutter-Minded Madness By Steve Eskew Panic! Panic! Panic! Where’s my phone? Where’s the TV remote? Where the devil did I hide my inflatable woman? Has anyone seen my hearing aid? Where’s Waldo? With my feet firmly planted in mid-air, my insufferable routine of misplacing items never fails to flop me into slapstick rage. And please don’t blame these silly fits of fury on “senior moments.” In my 20s, I used to grunt and grapple with myself a dozen times before breakfast: “Where did you put it, you dizzy ninny? It’s indispensable!” (as indispensable as the only draft of my thesis could be). However, years before I turned 19, I swear I had been the crowned geek of structure and control, a pompous mathlete who never misplaced so much as a digit. Credit that discipline to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Ah, but age 19 promptly launched the onslaught of a more chaotic disorder — bipolar, aka the scatterbrain menace. Pri...
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Fame, Fortune and Fudging Myself Contrary to popular myth, I’m neither gay nor a Hells Angel. But I sheepishly suspect that the first thing that crosses anyone’s mind when they first meet me is “Wow! Now there’s a Hells Angel, if ever I saw one.” Truth be told, some of my metrosexual biker buddies actually do ride bicycles, and those longer in the tooth mount senior tricycles. But, indeedy I do have a few authentic Hells Angels in my circle of friends. Hanging loose with the rough and ready became a necessity eons ago when I worked on an article about the fallacies of Hells Angels. I lounged around biker bars for the same reason I graced gay bars, you know? Research, research, research. Call me crazy but those are the two groups of men with whom I feel the most comfortable. The bikers admire my professed literary expertise and what sometimes passes for wit. Dissimilarly, the gays, most of whom are way wittier than I’ll ever be, admire my unmitigated virility. Sneer ...
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MONDAY JULY 1, 2024 Bypassing the Bypass and Outliving Myself By Steve Eskew Talk about horrific hallucinations. Have you ever experienced the surreal fright of feeling that a tall, grim guy with a cycle is stalking you? Ever felt him sitting in the back seat of your car? Even lurking on the other side of the shower curtain, tapping his foot as you bathe? Well, believe me, you haven’t lived until you think you’re going to die. It would appear that my complacent cardiologist dropped the ball by not giving me the scans I asked for. “No! You don’t need a scan or any other tests,” he uttered repeatedly for years. “Your blood’s perfect. Your heartbeat’s steady. My motto is: if something’s working, don’t fix it." Knowing I’m a born hypochondriac, I figured the doc had hit the nail on the head. After all, I’ve never had symptoms, but my gut instinct finally propelled me to insist on a scan — “just to feel safe.". Imagine my shock when my trusted Dr. “No” told me that I...
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Peevie Steevie By Steve Eskew Recently, my therapist nearly nodded off while I was explaining the complexities involved with my various pet peeves. I was indeed peeved with her disinterest and asked in an acid tone: “Would you like some toothpicks to prop your eyes open until the session is over?” “What I would like ,” she said, “is for you to answer the question without pontificating: Tell me in one sentence––what’s the origin of your preposterous pet peeve obsession? I groaned. “Okay. Two words: toy hog.” “I beg your pardon?” “Simply put, I was nine months old and my older brother habitually grabbed every toy I ever played with. I eventually reacted by pulling out a handful of his hair. ‘Nuff said?” The therapist glowered at me pityingly and submitted that such a magic memory borders on delusion, that someone else must have told me about the incident and I’ve simply imagined my maniacal fury. My latest pet peeve? Know-it-all therapists. As a mild-man...