What's up, Geezer?
A new print-only magazine explores the Gen X aging experience, which is beautiful but not always pretty.
1 | I co-founded a magazine. It’s called Geezer. It’s for you.
For the past several months, I’ve been working on a print-only magazine called Geezer, about the Gen X aging experience, messy and compelling as it is. The inaugural issue went to print yesterday, in Beaver Dam, Wisc., and I want you to be a part of it. Why?
Because the world needs Geezer, now more than ever. And because if you’re reading this, you’re probably planning on kicking ass in your second half, no matter what it takes or who needs to get out of the way. Geezer is the torch lighting your way.
And also because, if i’m being honest, I’m a geezer, he’s a geezer, she’s a geezer. Wouldn’t you like to be a geezer, too? If you’re answer is yes (or if you got the 1977 Dr. Pepper reference) subscribe now.
The Geezer backstory
Geezer is the brainchild of Laura LeBleu, who swears she came up with the idea in the shower one day last year. (All good magazines have saucy origin stories.) Though the magazine may train its gaze most often on Gen X, Geezer is for anyone 45 and up who rejects the conventional narratives about aging and what people with gray in their hair are capable of.
Geezer is big: 11 x 15 inches of richly textured storytelling published three times a year. And it’s print only. Because we’re all tired of looking at screens.
2 | Notes from my week practicing short, daily meditation
Last Saturday, I wrote about the importance of going deeper into what you love, and I gave a personal example: I wanted to meditate for even a few minutes every day.
Well, I did it. One day I managed to lie on the floor, pick a focal point on the ceiling and focus on my breathing for a full 12 minutes. The other days, I managed only 3 or 5 minutes, sometimes in bed before sleep. But I forced myself to meditate, with mindful breathing, every night this week. Here’s what I learned:
Meditation is a portal to creativity and connection. Even to a novice like me, meditation for a few solid minutes was like freeze-framing the movie I’m living in at any given moment and being able to walk inside the frame, while all the other people and objects inside it remain suspended in time, and just observe what’s going on.
Meditation, brief though it was, brought ideas to mind that would have otherwise remained out of my creative reach. It summoned to mind people whom I would not have otherwise thought about, and reminded me to reconnect to them. Really, meditation is a way to listen to yourself and what you’re really interested in.
Meditation is also the easiest thing in the world to avoid because it seems like it’s time not well spent, time not getting things done. I know this because I have a daily meditation reminder on my electronic calendar set for 1:45pm that, until this week, I habitually ignored — every weekday, for months.
This week was, therefore, progress toward my goal of becoming a habitual meditator. The rewards are too great to continue ignoring. Also, I now know how much fun it is to unplug for a few minutes a day and see what my mind and body wants from me.
3 | After surgery: four beers and a bag of Fritos
If my reporting from the sunlit uplands of my incredibly optimized and efficient life has you ready to cancel this newsletter — hang on a sec. I have one other story to share with you.
On Thursday, I had surgery on my right knee to clean up the medial portion of my meniscus, the horseshoe-shaped cartilage that serves as a shock absorber. As surgeries go, this was a minor but necessary procedure to remove a torn flap that had caused knee pain and swelling for most of this year.
Before you leave the hospital, a nurse hands you a piece of paper with a list of things you need to do to help your body heal and recover from the lingering effects of general anesthesia: rest, it says; drink lots of water, avoid making any major decisions, don’t drive, play with a wood chipper or operate a fork lift, and whatever you do, avoid alcohol for at least 24 hours.
About six hours after returning home, I heated up some leftover turkey crumble with brown rice and vegetables — a lean, high-protein, fiber-rich, plant-forward dinner. Which I washed down with a can of beer — because, screw it, I just had surgery. And anyway, I drink much less these days compared to even a few months earlier. Moreover I weigh a lean 200 pounds. What’s a beer with food going to do to me?
After dinner, watching a hockey game, I decided to drink another beer, which, combined with the vapors of the general anesthesia, suddenly felt relaxing in a different kind of way. While exchanging humorous texts with a couple of friends from college, I decided to hobble over to the fridge for a third beer — which drinking made me feel more mellow yet. Hm, I thought. This is interesting.
Whereupon I decided to have a fourth beer, the impact of which I would mitigate, I further decided, by breaking into and consuming an entire bag of Fritos.
That night in bed, full of beer and Fritos, I meditated but found falling asleep rather difficult. I’d been awake since 4:15am, so what was this about? I began rethinking my choices from dinner onward. I wondered if the beers had anything to do with my difficulty drifting off.
By morning, I understood that they had. I chose not to beat myself up about it too much but resolved to do better the next time I have knee surgery.
4 | Two documentary films worth watching
“I Like Me”
For anyone familiar with the comedic genius of the late, great John Candy, there’s a new documentary, “I Like Me,” that I recommend (the title is from a heartfelt line Candy’s character utters in “Trains, Planes & Automobiles”). The film includes Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara — the latter two of whom where Candy’s fellow cast members at SCTV, the most talented and original 1980s skit comedy troupe this side of Monty Python.
Candy died in 1994, at age 43.
“In Waves and War”
At the other end of the documentary spectrum is “In Waves and War,” which follows former Navy SEALs who, broken after decades of warfighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and unhelped by conventional medical treatments, decided to try psychedelic-assisted therapy using ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT, a naturally occurring psychedelic found in some plants and toads.
The story of these men is told subtly and evocatively, using animation and their own, harrowing voices and memories.
Here’s to a speedy recovery Paul!