Which Child Would You Kill?

I was thinking about Sophie’s Choice today and like anyone who read the book or saw the movie, you reflect on what kind choice you would make. Do you take the boy or the girl? And you can’t chicken out and say “Take me instead,” as would most parents. As much as I am terrified of dying, the reality is in our face every day and I suppose even I would rather take my own life than to witness the death of one of my kids due to my “choice.” 

So should it be Erica or Natalie? Of course the coward’s way out of flipping a coin or other engines of chance are prohibited. And I must not be swayed by anything they say or do to cause prejudice in my decision one way or the other. With Sophie, it was probably a gender decision and, since most cultures value males over females, rather unfairly in my opinion, her choice was not a surprise. But I have two girls. Both healthy, loving, full of promise. And I must choose one.
  

I’m stuck. Most important decisions should entail a listing of pros and cons and a rationale applied to yield an optimal decision. But my two girls are quite similar and their differences are irrelevant when it comes to weighing decisions pertaining to their mortality. Natalie is younger and healthier and will probably live longer if I don’t have her killed. But Erica has launched a career and is now a married woman with a husband to take care of. No, I can’t run away, because if I don’t make a choice, they will both be put to death, as will I. 

Sorry, this will require more thought. I’ll come back to it later. Maybe.

The Best Investment Advice in the World

Here’s some investment advice from a professional registered representative licensed to sell mutual funds and variable investments such as annuities (me, in other words). The advice is simple:

Ignore what everyone else is doing.

We are still suffering the remnants of the worst recession since the 1930s. They’re calling it The Great Recession. But as an astute student of market behavior, I happen to know that the stock market begins to recover six months before the end of the recession.

In fact, the market has more than doubled since the so-called end of the recession in 2009. But those getting the full benefit of the market recovery are smart institutional guys who manage pension funds, foundations, and corporate cash.

Small investors like you and me are still scared of losing more money in the stock market, so we invested in twice as many bonds as stocks during the current run-up of the stock market.

History tells us that small investors get out of a falling market too late and get back in just after missing about half of the recovery. That’s because we get too excited when the bulls are running and too scared when the bears are barking.

Of course the sad result is people don’t make as much money on their investments as they could and end up working much longer than they have to and lead lives of quiet destitution.

So here’s my advice. Ignore the damn markets! Invest the same amount every month. Don’t pay any attention to the markets—those who say they can beat the market are liars! Invest every month and you’ll get more shares when the market is low that will be worth a lot more when the market is high.

In the end, you’ll end up richer and you’ll never kick yourself for missing the next market rally or for being exposed when the bears burst in.

Who would’ve guessed that this little screed would offer the best investment advice you would ever get in your life? If there’s any interest out there—I’ll do another post telling you the best way to invest in stocks and bonds and just about anything else.

The Last From Me Re: Amazon

The battle lines have been drawn--it's us authors on board with Hatchette vs. the great sucking retail machine, Amazon. 

As a very humble writer of two self-published books, MEDICUS and ONE PAGE A DAY, I've actually been a target of a couple of long blast emails from the head of Hatchette and the head of retail books at Amazon. As it stands, Amazon and Hatchette are in bitter negotiations over the pricing of Hatchette's e-books, Amazon's position being that the publisher over-charges and, in retaliation, Amazon is making many of Hatchette's books unavailable on its website, thus hurting a constituency that hits close to home--my fellow authors.

Of course Amazon's point is that its top priority is to serve its customers by offering products at a fair price, and that Hatchette is undermining that policy. Hatchette's point of view, of course, is that publishing books is extremely risky and most books don't make back the costs of its production and marketing and thus must charge more to earn a decent profit. Both fair positions, in my view.

What's not fair in my view, is that the authors are the ones getting screwed. Hatchette authors are being blackballed by the largest book retailer in the world for reasons that have nothing to do with them. They are collateral damage in a war between two testosterone-fueled mega-corps.

The irony, from my POV, is that pricing, in the end isn't up to Amazon or Hatchette. The market sets the price. Amazon should certainly suggest pricing, but not necessarily demand certain pricing. If Hatchette can sell its e-books for $13.99, then god bless them. But they'll find out soon enough how much the market is willing to pay for its wares, and adjustments will be made accordingly. Amazon is probably right that you can sell more books and make more money by selling for $5.99 vs. $11.99, but why insist on $5.99? Give the over-pricer the option to fail and validate Amazon's research. Let the market do its job.

And set those Hatchette authors free!!!

Oh Wretched Retirement!

I read a really stupid article today in a trade publication that caters to financial advisers, formerly known as stock brokers. The essential thesis was that not only is it the adviser’s role to help individuals save for retirement, but also to gauge the client’s psychological readiness to retire.

As if:

·       A person’s miserable job is how they he defines himself and finds meaning in his life.

·       She has zero imagination on how she’s going to fill the yawning hours formerly devoted to mindless cubicle activities.

·       All his and her plans revolve around golf, reading, and traveling.

·       He/she has somehow become a stranger to his/her spouse and his/her constant presence would be an unbearable burden.

When is a problem not a problem? Here’s my off-the-cuff blueprint of a typical day in

Carl Ehnis’s retirement:

·       Get up at 7:30 a.m. and run 3 to 10 miles

·       Breakfast and read the New York Times

·       Write something unpublishable for a couple of hours

·       Lunch with highly compatible spouse

·       Nap. Oh, will I love taking naps!!!!

·       Putter around the house and yard for an hour

·       Fire up the amp and practice guitar for at least an hour

·       Go to the gym for an hour and a half. Or not.

·       Read from my 30 years of literary backlog

·       Dinner and Jeopardy

·       TV, a movie, a play, whatever.

·       Bed

Maybe some days I’ll do a part-time job, preferably bagging groceries at the local Whole Foods. Yeh, we’d travel some. Maybe learn how to play golf. I can tell that retirement is something at which I will excel.

And don’t worry—you will, too!

First Love

Kathy Rosenbloom was my first love. She was short with curly black hair and I first laid eyes on her when her mom brought her to my house a week before kindergarten started. She had a deep voice and a melodic jack-in-box laugh that was either naturally throaty or a result of a lingering chest cold.

She had round dappled cheeks and dimples when she smiled and I took her hand when she visited, though I had never done that with a girl before. Her hands were tiny and bunched and a little coarse, which surprised me because children my age growing up in a middle-upper-class suburban neighborhood did not engage in much heavy labor or farm activities.

A few weeks into the school year I visited Kathy Rosenbloom’s house, which was on a high hill among a cluster of modern split-level mansions. Her house was so large that there was an intercom system that Kathy’s parents used to summon her and her three brothers and which they pointedly ignored.

I remembered a lot of shouting by her parents and the other kids, but not by Kathy, who was serene and seemed to glow in my presence. I didn’t like her house—it was too large and modern and impersonal and the air held certain notes of flatulence—a misty methane miasma seemed to dangle in the air. I suspect now that, as a Jewish household, the Rosenbloom’s diet was not terribly suited to healthy digestion.

Alas, I chased heedlessly after Kathy in the playground and kissed her constantly on the cheek in public, without wiles, and unaware of the rules of courtship and so forth at the age of six. I think I scared her away and, in fact, by the end of kindergarten, the Rosenbloom family had packed up and left and I never saw Kathy Rosenbloom again.

I guess I must’ve scared the Rosenblooms away.

Dedicated to Aging Runners Everywhere

This is about aging. For most people, age creeps up slowly and then socks you in the jaw when you go to the doctor and she tells you that your blood pressure is on the high side, your bones are getting a little porous, you gotta start popping a baby aspirin every day or you’ll get a heart attack.

And there are the every-day things like a little less hair, a little more paunch, the minor aches and pains that take longer to get rid of. Loosening flaps of skin, etc. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But there is a more precise gauge to aging that we runners battle constantly—it’s called the clock. Race times elongate, even with a similar or greater effort. That’s how I’m living a lie. I am a trim 5’ll’’, 158 pounds with fairly lean body mass, very little gray hair and people say I could pass for someone 20 years younger than my true age. But the other day I completed a 16-mile trail race and I was totally wasted. The same race I finished in a little over two hours two years ago took me two-and-a-half yesterday.

           

But that’s just part of the story. I had no stamina, walked for significant portions of the race, and reached my maximum aerobic threshold at a mere trot. A few short years ago I would have breezed through that course, but, baby, the elements of age, gravity, and the tick…tick…tick don’t lie.

Runners can’t hide from the truth. The truth will leave them panting and puking in the bushes. It was a disheartening Sunday, or so I thought.

           

Found out the next day that for the first time in my life I finished FIRST in my age group. And it happened in that awful, miserable race. Of course my age group consisted of only three male individuals, most likely experiencing the same deteriorating physical calamities that are encroaching upon my well-being.

Given the paucity of participants in my age group, my conclusion is that some races are simply a younger man’s game. I will not, and cannot, capitulate to that thesis because, as previously noted, I run not only to eat, but also to cheat age and death.

Yet death seems so present at certain stages of certain runs. The psychology of running is a bit knotty from my standpoint. I’ve never quite experienced the so-called joy of running and distrust those who insist that it is inherently playful and rewarding. Maybe for the young sprinters and steeplechasers.

But for us long-run sloggers, the joy is in the accomplishment, not necessarily in the process. Runner’s high? Who’s kidding whom? If I run 10 miles today, I can eat a sausage pizza tonight. That’s what running means to me. Plus the envious stares from my MD and the lady at the blood bank who makes me walk around the room a few times to get my resting pulse rate up high enough to fill a bag with healthy runner’s blood.

           

That, and once every 15 years finishing first in my age group. Maybe I am not a good running ambassador. How’s this: running isn’t heaps of wonderful for what it is, but for what it does.

Please--Don't Bring Your Babies to Work!

A coworker brought her teeny tiny baby into the office today. He was born about a month or two ago. I don’t really keep track. I don’t understand why people bring their young children into the office.

Well, sure I do. It’s an adult version of show-and-tell. “Look what I made. I’m so proud!”

Of course the females in the department coo and gush over the little infants, sweeping them out of Mommy’s and Daddy’s arms and fuss over them and admire the feral little creatures for what they are.

I’m sorry, it’s just not for me. I don’t care to see the human, domestic side of my co-workers. Just show me a picture and, for godsakes, don’t bring them in when they’re only a month old, No! They don’t look like anybody. Not mommy, not daddy. They look like babies and I just don’t need the disruption.

I’m not terribly fond of babies. Don’t really know what to do with them except hold them and make faces, which makes me feel ridiculous and usually causes a look of confusion on their pinched little pusses.

I don’t know what to say to them, don’t especially care much for their parents and regret having to make the connection that yes, she has family, too. She’s not just a glib, pompous, and superficial striver, which is her day-to-day persona.

Yeh, I know what you’re thinking. I have two girls of my own. I love them deeply and I loved them as babies, just as I loved them as toddlers, and teens. But that’s because they are mine. I never felt the compulsion to share them with my coworkers.

They are my pride and joy. My private pride and joy. Not toys for show and tell.