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Today is 150^th anniversary of the birth August Strindberg, the Swedish playwright considered to be one of the fathers of modern European theater. Fans of Woody Allen's Manhattan might recognize the name from a line that Allen's character utters in a conversation about relationships: "You shouldn't ask me for advice. When it comes to relationships with women, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg Award."

This comment neatly summarizes the way Strindberg is largely viewed in the contemporary world. In his personal life he was married and divorced three times, each marriage ending with a bitter feud. His troubles with relationships have caused many to dismiss him as a misogynist, and the themes found in most of his plays seemed to support this argument. They're full of sex, lust, and the enduring struggle for power that he believed characterized every relationship. But that criticism only seems valid if you take his plays at face value. Beneath the surface of the lines his male characters speak, it's possible to detect a sweeping criticism of the mores set upon the society in which he lived, especially as they pertained to the gender roles and sexual desires.

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When we had been dating only a couple of months, my husband gave me a basketball for my birthday, thus making certain that he was the man I would marry.

Writing Boost has been great excuse to re-discover the game. I bought a new net for the hoop on the backboard, inflated the basketball, took some shots, adjusted my aim for the arthritis in my shoulder, shot some more. Couldn't stop, because that's the nature of this compulsion, as any young or wish-I-were-still-young person can tell you.

It doesn't matter if you're male or female, fourteen or forty, professional or playground-you only have to bounce the ball once to want to keep the pam pam pam coming. 

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I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to give to me straight.

Why do you workout?

Why does any guy workout?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say you train because you want to look great clothed and even better naked. You train so you can hook up with girls.

So let's embrace our vanity for a moment while I propose an idea:

While most things concerning women seem to be a complete mystery -- why they need to have their mouths open to apply mascara, for example -- what attracts the average woman is fairly easy to decipher. You just have to know where to look. Or more important, where she's looking.

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I have two friends, Seth and Michael, and one of them is a lot happier than the other.

Seth is chronically unhappy.  He is often glum, frequently irritable, and sometimes hopeless, though he has never been clinically depressed.  By contrast, Michael is a remarkable happy person.  Although he has his low moments and periodic stress, he manages to find joy in his days and is quite content with the way his life is going.  To understand why these two men are so different, let me tell you a little bit about them.

Both are in their early 40s and doing well in their careers.  Michael is a professor of psychology at a prestigious university, who has reasonably bright students, a fair amount of autonomy in his work, and many opportunities for travel.  His research program has been successful, garnering attention from all over the U.S.  Seth is a deputy city attorney in a small but beautiful city right on the Pacific Ocean.  He specializes in landlord-tenant disputes and other civil matters, and his success as a litigator has led to occasional media appearances, in which he is asked to speak about his latest cases.  He gets a kick out of doing that.