March 5, 2005

• being old

  Well, I plodded through another of the obligatory memoir
  segments.  I do feel obligated to work on the memoirs.  It’s
  something I started, and I’d not want to die and leave it
  unfinished.  I don’t expect to live forever.  I’ve been
  living on borrowed time ever since I grew up, whenever that was. 
  Doctors told my parents when I was a baby that with my congenital
  immune deficiencies I “wouldn’t live to grow up.”  I haven’t
  gotten any taller for about 45 years.  Either I had some powerful
  will to live, or some pretty stupid doctors.

  Who knows, I might even get into the memoir writing and start enjoying
  the task somehow.  A few years ago when I was writing about the
  biker years and prison, it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, but it was therapeutic.  I
  might even dredge up some buried youthful guilt or trauma it’ll do me
  good to release.  Who knows?  For now, I’ll have to content
  myself with making progress with the project and having this
  opportunity to reflect on getting old.

  It was benevolentMitch
  today who pointed out that I’m old.  I know he wasn’t trying to be
  unkind.  He’s one of the kindest men I know, and I’m not generally
  bothered by the thought of aging.  For all my life every birthday
  and every dawning day has been a triumphant milestone.  I am happy
  about having gotten old.

  Given all of that, I wonder why I was sitting here a few minutes ago
  crying.  Let’s see if I can reconstruct my train of thought….

  I had gone to mitch’s site and read that he’d like to get laid. 
  That sounded like a good idea to me.  It’s been a long time since
  I got laid.

  I started thinking about ways and means.  Who?  Where?  When?  How? 

  No, I haven’t forgotten how to
  do the basic act.  It’s like riding a bicycle, only a lot more
  fun.  But I may have lost my facility with the subtle art of
  seduction.  What am I thinking?  Lost??  I never had any
  facility with that art.  What I mostly had was this damned red
  hair and not an iota of resistance to seduction.

  If I had to seduce a man, I’d not know where to start.  My best
  chance might be to find some public place (not a bar, that’s OUT)
  observe closely, find one who’s obviously horny, and just walk up and
  say, “Wanna fuck?”  That tactic worked forty years ago, but I had
  more teeth then and more importantly, I had pheromones.  Those
  pheromone perfumes are expensive.  I can’t afford them.

  Besides, the last couple of times someone put moves on me, I turned
  them down.  At the time, I was thinking that I couldn’t afford to
  risk growing attached to someone new and all the disturbance that could
  bring into my life.  Greyfox has always told me if I fool around,
  I’m not to let him know.  I’m no good at all at secrecy and
  sneakiness.

  Lately, I’m not much good at anything that takes any physical effort,
  either.  I get winded easily, even with the new asthma meds. 
  My stamina is almost nil.  A shopping trip to town leaves me
  fatigued for days afterward.  A fine vigorous fuck…

  …and just about there on that train of thought was where I started
  crying.  Crying felt good.  I realized I hadn’t cried
  since… I don’t remember the last time.  It was months ago, long
  before the moose incident.  Tears are therapeutic, but there’s no
  use my trying to force them.  When they flow, okay, but when they
  don’t, they don’t.

  The train of thought, of course, didn’t stop for the tears.  I
  went on to reflect on the things I’ve recently learned about the
  biochemistry of lust, romance and attachment, and about how those
  biochemical states have historically brought me remissions from some of
  my chronic illnesses.  Maybe Mitch was right last week when he
  said I need a gigolo.  I wish I could afford one.
  

  • 7:33 pm
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