They say it’s the key to living longer, and who doesn’t want that? Get a new hobby. Make a new friend. Better still, make AI your friend.
But when you’re 76 like me, being a novelty-seeker grows harder with each passing year. My days of ice-climbing,spelunking, free-diving and bank robbingare pretty much done.
But there are some new things I can do, and in telling you my story, these are things I want to urge you to do. They don’t have to be new physical things. They can be new psychological things or, in my case, new psychiatric things.
These are things I’d either spent my life actively avoiding, or walking by and muttering to myself: “Women do that. Men don’t do that. It would be weird for me to do that. I would be weird if I did that. I am not weird. I won’t do that.”
So back in June, I did one of those things, with my loving family by my side (their support was crucial), and since then I’ve done it three times. In fact, this week after I did it just a block from where I live, I put it in my calendar to do again on March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21 so I can remember that these days mark the start of spring, summer, fall and winter.
What I did was get a pedicure.
You know: those places where women flock to have their hands and feet prettied up by other women? One of those.
I don’t know what got into me. It was a Saturday morning and my wife and daughter were meeting at Broadview and Danforth for their regular pedicure. I asked my wife: “Should I get a pedicure?” She replied, as if I’d asked: “Should I get a double-double at Tim Horton’s?” …”Sure.”
That seemed easy. But my ease was immediately replaced by terror. I asked Jean if she’d ever seen a man where she gets her pedicures and what kind of treatment should I ask for.
I asked myself an entirely different set of questions: Would the women laugh at me? Stare at me? Stare at my feet? And, of course, the biggest and most important question: What if I failed?
But Jean and her daughter let me join them, and of course there was a last-minute cancellation, which meant I got to dip my feet into lukewarm water with epsom salts, have my feet massaged, my calluses shaved, and my nails cut and shaped (though not polished, polish being too much of a muchness for a first-timer.)
I suffered all the fears that come with doing anything for the first time, in the company of people who’ve done it for years, from using your bank machine, to checking out your own groceries, to performing open heart surgery. These are all a lot easier the second time you do them.
The distaff side of my family waited patiently for me to be done. Then they asked how I felt, and I have to say I felt fantastic! My feet, which I viewed as stubby walking poles now felt like pointe shoes and I was Baryshnikov.
The price ($45 plus tip) was right, exactly what I pay for a haircut.
One added benefit. As I grow older and the job of cutting my own nails gets harder, I now have a way to avoid all that.
My only regret is that I didn’t start having pedicures half a century ago.
But the walls of gender separation are falling everywhere.
Toronto now has a storefront operation that caters exclusively to men for manicures, pedicures and more – For Men Only and “stigma-free.” Of course it’s calledMenicure.
This is a bold and long overdue first step. But I see no reason for the separation of the sexes to be more than a transitional phase.
Surely, all those mani-pedi places in storefronts all over the city should be fully co-ed.
We men have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Meanwhile…
1. Feeling listless? Finally, someone’s gathered all the year-end “best ofs” in Movies, TV Shows, Music, Books, Poetry, and Podcasts – all in a single link for you to devour.
Plus, the movie that opened on Christmas Day that everyone is raving about, the ping-pong thriller Marty Supreme, starringTimothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow.
2. Toronto’s set to hit a 50-year low in homicides. That was The Star’s headlinethis week, along with the question: “So why do many people think crime is getting worse?” First, crime fell in 2024 for the first time since 2020; second, one reason people think crime is rising is that Pierre Poilievre keeps telling us that. As he claimed in his last fundraiser: “… communities are less safe and crime is rising.” No. It. Isn’t.
3. Talking heads talk headlines. McKinsey’s 100 best interviews of the yearoffers a dashboard of what corporate CEOs and other leaders are thinking about, or at least talking about – from travel to pharma, and convenience to leadership.
4. A sad closing. Arctic Watch, the storied tour operator that opened the far far North to travellers, will be no more. Founded by the Weber Family in the Year 2000, it wasn’t felled by climate change or high costs, but by politics.
5. Rare words with deep meaning. From eclipsara and novalepsis, to scianelleand opathian. Plus a different look atpopulation growth, and why this year was one of the greatest years ever for men’s tennis. And why you shouldn’t worry that running a marathon will hurt your heart.
6. What church mouse of a concert venue scored two of the best live concerts of the year? Toronto’s Hugh’s Room, according to the Globe and Mail’sBrad Wheeler in his Top 10 Concerts of the Year. Wheeler’s list included The Who in London’s Albert Hall and Feist in Madison Square Garden. The two Hugh’s Room concerts hosted Ron Sexsmith and Bill Frisell. Sexsmith performs again at Hugh’s Room on Feb. 6.
7. Melania and Mozart get their own movies. Finally, America’s First Lady gets top billing, in the documentary, Melania, filmed in December 2024 and leading up to her husband’s inauguration this past January. Meanwhile, if the only Amadeusyou remember is the 1984 Oscar-winning movie about Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the new five-part Sky TV drama, Amadeus, premiered last week, starring Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany. Finally, New York’s most famous pickpocket gets his own movie too.
8. Crushing losses; giddy wins. Everestcan thrill you, then kill you. Meryl can do that too. Plus The Year through the eyes of GoPro. Plus, men get their comeuppance.
9. How to grow old. Finally, some real advice. Plus how to start having sex again.And two telling questions: “Anything in particular, sir?” and “Do you even like Chinese food?”
10. What’s killing the arts? In Britain, it’s bureaucracy. Who’s the smartest guy in the room? Likely German mathematicianCarl Friedrich Gauss who was scary smart. Plus, why tourist cities need tourists. And finally, a conscience in Silicon Valley.
11. What I’m liking. Ken Burns’ latest PBS special, The American Revolution. The six-part series (you can buy it via Apple+ TV) has all the tropes we love: lonely fiddles playing over black and white shots of slaughter. But this isn’t Burns’ The Civil War, which he brought us in 1990; it’s the war Canadians know even less about, between America and Britain and France, in the mid-1700s that caused the Loyalists to flee north and form our own country a century later. Eye-opening on things we thought we knew, but didn’t.