In this case, the term “jumping the shark” is a colloquialism coined by TV critics and fans to denote that point at which a TV show, movie series’ or your life veers off plot into absurd story lines. It stems from the finalish episode of “Happy Days” when the Fonz waterski-gambols over a ridiculously fake shark in an effort to garner ratings.

The phrase has been used more recently outside the realm of popular culture to represent anything that has reached its peak and has declined in quality. Like relationships, for instance.

Have you ever awakened to perceive the other person in a COMPLETELY different light and you can never go back to the way things were? You irrevocably jump that shark. It is either the loss of respect, a wistful longing for some idyllic past or some naked realization of personal perfidy. But, in your heart, you know it’s over.

The good news is that some relationships can be immunized against shark jumping. It takes a huge commitment to renewal and reinvention. It requires both parties take personal responsibility for enriching and extending their mutual storylines, their conjoined plot – with particular attention to rising action, climax, falling action, and that final, sweet dénouement.

So do you have any ‘jumping the shark’ experiences to share (kudos for honesty and creativity)?
How do you keep a relationship from ‘jumping the shark’?

The best is Bertie Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (as opposed to his little known Specific Theory of Step-Relativity that underlies the Cinderella Principle.) A black hole is a region in space from which nothing, light or love, can escape. It is the result of a rift in spacetime, a very minor slight or tear, amplified a bazillion fold. Around the black hole there is an undetectable point, which marks the point of no return, called the event horizon. It is the wellspring of resentment. It is called “Black” because it absorbs all the love that hits it, reflecting nothing, like a perfect black body of anger in thermorelationshipdynamics.

Some heretics have suggested that you should forgive others not seven times but seventy times seven or a sum total of 490 times. Hell, and that’s just in a single day. This view is denigrated as overly pious in physical science circles. In psychological science associations, however, forgiveness is gaining currency as the key to balanced mental health.

Do you know any black holes of love?
What do you do to combat their gravitational effect?

For me, I know the ecstasy of hooking a whopper, reeling in a keeper and landing the big one. I have been chasing (fish) tail since my youth. It never seems to get old. The thrill of the chase, the silky smooth cast of the line, the peaceful moments in between.
Hemingway wrote about the epic struggle of an old man and a fish. Thus inspired, I wrote about my own – “The Middle Aged Man and the Pond”.

Funny to think about just how much of our daily to’ing and fro’ing has to do with instinctive, primal urges. Like fishing.

What primal, instinctive urge have you exercised today?

How much time do you spend a day engaged in vicarious entertainment?

Speaking of conditioning, wouldn’t it be mondo cool if you could rinse your soul the way you do your hair. I mean, say you were in dire need of boosting your fullness or lifting your frizz, you could just apply some soul conditioner to lubricate your tangle, energize your body, or tame those split ends.

The dictionary definition of conditioner is anything that improves the quality of another. Alas, would that you could gloss your soul like you do your hair. Instead, I fear, the only way to tone up your soul is through contemplative meditation, learning, self-awareness, struggle, integrity, introspection, interaction, indulgence, curiosity, or possibly, soul pushups.

How do you tone up your soul?

Both were old pros: Match.com, Craigslist, MILF Land. They had covered all the bases, had profiles in all the right places. And yet against all odds, love’s embrace had eluded them. Until that moment.

Like a flash of lightning, a little earthquake, or the ding on a microwave oven, they fell headlong into love, slid wantonly into lust.

He was a vacuum repairman. She, an accordion player in an all-girl blue grass band. Brought up on different sides of the street, each sucking to their own tune. Fate, maybe, or a bad case of the munchies, brought them together that night. He had ducked into the Quickie Mart for a quick bite. She, to pickup the latest copy of Rolling Accordion. When they ran into each other by the hot dog stand the sparks flew.

“Can I garnish your dog?” She whispered sultrily.
“Yus, please.” He stammered holding his dog out for her. Her French maid’s costume that doubled as band apparel stunned him.

Her expert fingers slathered as he arched his back to meet her mustard.
“Oh, yessss, that’s good.”
“It looks so tasty, can I have a bite?”

He knew that giving into her temptation would send them on a crash course to the drink fountain together. But still he acquiesced. Next thing they were frothing each other’s drinks. Without ice! Without lids! Unprotected soda. What the hell was he thinking?!

She knew she had him when they ended up together in baked goods looking for Ding Dongs. Love was never so good before, in a Quickie Mart.

Have you ever experienced love in a quickie mart?

I am to car dancing, what Tiger Woods is to golf. I can rock a car like he can launch a drive. I can groove to a tune like he can zone in on a putt. Alas, whereas he has parlayed his genius at the game into a cool billion dollars playing in front of millions, I have plied my trade in relative anonymity for nothing.

Yet we are much alike, he and I. We are both private people who affect an image of domestic bliss. Like the Woods, I too have two saplings. However, I have learned, through hard experience, that reality is often more nuanced than the surface portends.

When the five iron hits the two back Escalade windows, it’s time to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Tiger.

So in absence of an explanation from his Tigerness, why do you think he played pinball with the fire hydrant and tree in this front yard?

What is your unique skill?

We all come into this world denuded and pure. And forever after, we all aspire to return to that state. In the process of cleansing ourselves, we invariably break down into two sorts: bathers and showerers. Today let us muse metaphysically on these two archetypes.

Pity the poor bath bigots. They are all spiritual quasi-descendants of Alexander Cumming, the 18th century inventor who put the bath in the modern bathroom. These folks love to lounge in laving ecstasy and linger in sudsy froth. They see soaking as much a spiritual as a corporeal activity.

Others merely sprint through the sprinkle, flitting under the showerhead for just long enough to get wet. They don’t waste time slaking off their grime. In, out, with the precision of military moll. These folks lead busy lives and must get on with it. They can only afford a quickie.

So how about yourself, are you a bather or a showerer?

Essentially it means, “to show that you do not respect something or someone by doing something that insults them.” Well, if you have ever been legally responsible for the actions of a teenager then you have experienced this snook-cocking first hand.

Teens molt into adults like gallstones empty down the urethra: slow and painful. The measure and pace that they shed their youthful innocence, they fill up with angst and anger. They oh so want to control their own fates, but are not yet equipped to do so. So they chaff and rebel against any form of authority or common sense.

There are four teens living under our roof. For the most part, like when the moon is blue and full, they respect their elders. The rest of the time they roll their eyes and make strange pfffftttttt sounds as graphic counterinsurgency to our benevolent dictatorship.

Have you ever cocked a snook in your life? Do tell?

A lemon tree exploding with yellow fruitballs grows outside my bedroom window. Every so often we hear a ‘thunk’ followed by ‘gatagatagata’ as lemons fall onto and roll around our roof.
We have a surfeit of lemons, so many in fact that I’m drowning in their juices. I’ve drunk more lemonade in the past two months of my life than in the first 40 or so years combined. Can one OD on lemonade?

Recently, a visitor complained that our house was haunted as evidenced by strange sounds and tumblings in the night. I would have ridiculed them if I didn’t harbor doubts myself. Having lived in China for many years, I absorbed more than their language and culture. Maybe owing to the fact I was Chinese in a previous life, I also soaked up many of their beliefs. In China, the good folks believe phantasms exist the same way duck tape exists.

Please, I beg you, just don’t call me a quack!

Do you believe in ghosts?
Do u like ur lemonade fresh squeezed?