Friday night was my wife’s big birthday bash. It was the first party that a dear friend of ours has attended since getting a new kidney. It turns out that the donor of her new kidney had never drunk alcohol. When she and her husband arrived, I swear I heard the new kidney singing Kool and the Gang: “Celebrate good times, come on! There’s a party goin’ on right here!”

We had a beer and wine bar at the party. My friend and her new kidney visited the bar. I was never so happy to have contributed to the delinquency of a kidney!

Definition of a true optimist: A 55-year-old man with a prescription for daily Cialis.

In business, success and failure are the flip side of the same coin, and the coin is very thin. Most people who don’t own businesses have no appreciation for this fact.

Parenting is a mix of pretending that you know your big decisions are correct, little things you know that you screw up, and prayer that those quiet moments with your kids, when they recognize you love them, will make it all work out.

I have started to tell media training participants that one of the most important skills is knowing when to shut up. Invariably, when I tell a woman that “you do good shut up,” she responds, “Would you please call my husband and tell him that?”

I’ve been approached about doing an Internet Talk Radio show. I don’t know if people would want to listen, but it would allow me to compact all of my whining and complaining into one-hour blocks. That could make my life more efficient.

I bought bagels in a bag this morning for the kids to eat for breakfast. The bag says they are “pre-sliced.”

Friday night, I picked up my daughter and a friend from another friend’s house. We had to kill an hour before picking up my son. They actually talked to me. Even more, I was allowed to talk. Usually, I am relegated to being the don’t-talk-chauffeur.

This, I learned, was a Friday night out purposefully devoid of boys. They wanted a break from boys. So I got to be a pretty teenage girl, hanging without boys.

We went to Target and tried on goofy lumberjack hats. We read magazines in Borders. We got grossed out together by a radio ad for male enhancement (apparently, according to the ad, it’s thickness that matters).

We giggled a lot. I learned that being a pretty teenage girl, at least at 14 and 15, is for the most part and for most of them, pretty joyous, even though boys clearly muck the joy up.

Maybe my daughter will conclude that weekend nights without boys would be a good thing for a while — maybe like five years.

I have no doubt this is a true story, rather than simply apocryphal, as the source is somebody I’ve known and trusted for years. My friend worked tirelessly for the Obama campaign. On the last weekend of the campaign, a colleague was calling voters in a southern state. Obama volunteer on phone: Have you decided who you will be voting for? Elderly woman on other end of the phone, yelling to her husband: Honey, who are we voting for? Husband, yelling back, overhead by the Obama volunteer: We’re voting for the n—–.

The most offensive marketing letter in history: I received a letter from a consulting firm. It starts, “Dear Mr. Rosenberg, How do you stop incest at Rosenberg Communications?”

Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be caricatures: I was at a gas station in Chevy Chase, MD. A Land Rover pulls up next to me. Out steps a 40-year-old-or-so guy wearing a tan Land’s End coat, jeans that cost way too much for jeans, and Crocs on his feet. If a cartoonist had drawn the stereotype of a man and his vehicle from the wealthy enclave of Chevy Chase, MD, that cartoon had just pulled up next to me. Here’s a tip for all men, and aspiring men — don’t be a caricature.

I have come to recognize the most important question that any business leader — of any sized business — must answer. That is, How much do I whine in front of my staff?

I am a whiner. I admit it. I am sure it is what makes me so sexy to women (wouldn’t you think?)

I complain and whine in front of my staff. But it’s almost always in the context of driving toward success. There are times though, when the physical exhaustion translates into mental exhaustion and I fantasize about doing what Don Draper did in Mad Men — disappearing (though he did it for weeks; I fantasize about doing it for a day). That sort of mental exhaustion, whining that could sound like depression, I don’t think staff should see. Fortunately for them, I am so much fun to be around every moment that I’m sure they never pick up on it.

Or if they do, they are probably just impressed with how powerful my whining has become.

A couple of Saturdays ago we told my 14-year-old daughter she could only stay out at a local shopping and theatre area until 10 pm. The curfew didn’t go over too well:

Daughter: I’m in high school now. You can’t keep me locked up.
Me: I think 10 pm is late enough.
Daughter: If you and mom keep this up I’ll rebel. And teens that rebel end up in trouble. I’ll be on the streets, using drugs, addicted to crack, and knocked up by the time I’m 18!
Me: I think 10 pm is fine.

(I will say this, I am impressed by how strong my daughter brings it when we argue.)

My wife and I were at a local micro-brewery/restaurant a while back and overhead this exchange between a man at the table next to ours and the waitress. (The waitress brought the man a can of Coors Light, which he has just opened and sipped.)

Customer: Excuse me, miss.
Waitress (Returning to his table): Yes?
Customer: I thought you were known for unusual, very good beers.
Waitress: Uh, yes.
Customer: Well, this Coors Light tastes like every other Coors Light I’ve ever ordered — anywhere.
Waitress (incredibly, not laughing): That’s a can of Coors Light that we buy like every other restaurant. See those large vats in there. We brew our own beer.

I’m an idiot. I just read my last posting, in which I whine about succeeding at business.

I can take a break from the office at 3:30, which I will do today so that I can do a few things with my kids, and return to a very nice office that is mine later tonight to work. Why? Because I’m succeeding at business.

I can sign a contract to do landscaping at our house in the middle of a recession because I’m succeeding at business.

Yes I’m tired. Yes it’s overwhelming.

Yes I’m a whining idiot. And quite self-absorbed at that, if you ask me.

My definition of manliness has certainly changed over the years. This morning I actually said, “I get a tea in the morning and latte in the afternoon.” It’s been a long time since I’ve watched any of the Dirty Harry movies, but I don’t think Clint ever uttered those words.

It means a lot to me that I can get mad at my two boys (one now a man, one getting closer and closer). Men should be able to yell at each other, simmer a bit, and then move on. Yesterday, I told my youngest son, in no uncertain terms, that I was not happy with his endeavor on a lacrosse field. I had no concerns about performance — I felt he wasn’t taking it seriously while others were working hard. He disagreed, angrily. Within 30 minutes we were good. That’s Blogenmasculinity.

My wife and I are discussing various long-term care insurance plans. I pointed out that I want the high-end insurance because that will guarantee I would be at a nursing home with hot nurses. Blogenberg’s Blogenmasculinity is so adorable it’s intolerable, don’t you think?