The Rubicon Looms

Have I crossed the Rubicon?

In 2022 I have become enormously fat. My knee ain't right. I have no energy. I get out of breath from wiping my ass. 

My head tells me I can get past this. When I have to, I can go on a psycho diet and raging exercise routine and lose weight. Get healthy again. Get my breath back. Rustle up some energy. At least in the past.

But what about now? How many men my age are fat and out of shape? All of them. Can every single one of them be lazy, or is it just a thing that happens - a fact of life? Is it possible that I will never get "it" back? That I cannot lose the weight? That I will never again feel healthy?

Is this the fucking beginning of the end? 

Something to consider: My brother, who is 67, recently told me that he gained 10 pounds. That is stunning. He couldn't believe it himself. He is disciplined in his diet, disciplined in his exercise routine. He is in excellent health; he comes across like a 45 year old man.

He tried to exercise it off, diet it off - and he couldn't do it. He ended up going through the Noom program - and it still took him 2 months to lose 10 pounds.

I am fucked. I want to lose 25 to 30 pounds before Craig & Amanda's wedding, so people won't point to me and say to Craig - "Is that fat man over there your Dad?" To which he will reply - "No fucking way. Unfortunately, my Dad couldn't make it today."

If I lose 10 pounds, it will be a miracle.

But health is the point. Aging. I am not aging well all of a sudden, and if I don't find an answer I will never age well.

You have to fight back against death. Being fat, being weak, shortness of breath, fatigue - these are all invitations for the Grim Reaper to visit earlier than he had planned.

Fuck the Grim Reaper. I don't want him around.

But I am nervous. I hate the way I feel, hate the way I look. This fucking 2,000 degree heat wave has chopped the knees out from under my exercise program for now. Air conditioning was invented in 1902. 120 years later, Carol and I have no air conditioning. Apparently, we are not decisive.

Once the heat breaks, I am going to ramp up the exercise program exponentially. I am going to give it my best shot.

But that voice in my head is skeptical. Am I too old? Is this a delusional quest?

Have I crossed the Rubicon?

I pray that I have not, because what awaits on the other side is not pretty.

Severe Need.

On the mornings of the days when I have to work, I am in severe need of sensitivity.

Severe. I need to feel something, something real, something in my heart. Because when I go to work I will be eviscerated; my belly will be sliced open, my guts falling to the floor, people walking by stepping on my guts and not apologizing.

Our cats have this thing that they do. They spend 98% of their time on the screened-in porch all summer. But they check in on us. They stroll into the house, walk across our laps, look us in the eye and walk on through. This happens multiple times during the day and the night.

On those mornings as I sit vulnerable in the recliner aching to be human, one of them - Emmy Lou or Patsy - and sometimes both of them at different moments - climb into my lap. Spend a few moments. Look me in the eye.

In those moments my heart leaves my body; it floats through my chest and hovers within striking distance of Emmy Lou or Patsy.

They sniff it, as cats do - lick it a little bit, nuzzle up against it (my favorite move).

And I am so full of love and so grateful and so tenderly content - tears in my eyes - that I remember that I am a human being.

Not a chump.

Emmy Lou and Patsy are precious beyond description to me and Carol.

Health in 2022 (An Update)

Remember when my right leg went crashing through the rotted board on my screened-in porch?

I told you about it, for Christ sake - don't you even care?

The right thigh/hip took a fucking beating and was badly bruised - a big ugly goddamn thing. Blue and purple and yellow and aquamarine.

Eventually the bruise subsided, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed swelling in that spot. Actually, it is more like a bubble than swelling. It wasn't going down, so I popped in to see Dr. Feelgood this week.

She checked it out and said it is probably a fluid build-up, which sometimes happens in cases where body parts take a beating.

I am scheduled for a Sonic Boom (Ultrasound) next week, and will probably have to have the fluid drained by a needle.

Health has not been my strong point this year.

I AM Fighting Back

Been a lot of doom and gloom in here in the Year of Our Lord 2022.

I've been kicked around a bit and I'm feeling off balance. But I am fighting back.

Driving fast with the AC on and the sunroof open and the radio blasting. That is a recipe for success. Or survival. Or mental health.

Whatever type of recipe it is, it is fucking working for me.

An added bonus is that I haven't had a haircut since October. My hair whips around my head in wild and reckless abandon, confirming the truth that I am indeed a child of the sixties. And always will be, with no apologies.

When I lower myself into the driver's seat of that high powered, built for speed Hyundai, I feel like a man. I crank the AC, open the sunroof, blast the radio and fucking take off.

Nobody can touch me, nobody can hurt me.

"Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio." Hunter S. Thompson

His words ring true.

You start there, make yourself comfortable, and crank up the speed, and suddenly all the answers to the questions of the Universe are revealed to you.

Plus, it is a lot more fun tossing empty nips through the sunroof than it is to drop them cautiously out the driver's side window.

The Bubble Couple

Carol and I are living in a bubble.

Have been for a couple of years. We will experience one of two outcomes:

1) The bubble will burst and we will crash and burn.

2) The bubble will be set adrift on a breeze of hope and, ultimately, deliver us to peace.

We are sitting on this rat trap of a house which has magically become valued at much more than it's worth. Selling it is the only chance we will ever have of both being retired together and living the rest of our lives in peace.

Our realtor is coming out to the house for the third time in 2 or 3 years; he'll be here Thursday. We have come up with strategies each time to make the house sellable before putting it on the market. Carol and I have followed through - having a company haul all the fucking trash - 36 years worth out of here. Before that we rented a huge dumpster, and Carol and I cleaned 3,000 tons of trash out of here ourselves.

We hired a company to come in to the cellar to get rid of mold. This required an enormous amount of work; stripping sheetrock, moving shit around.

We have tried for years to get handymen over here to do outside work, with very limited success.

Finally Carol called the realtor recently and said "Fuck it, we are done fooling around. Let's just list this motherfucker and see what happens." I'm not sure she used those exact words.

The realtor is coming out to take another look around, and to give us advice. He is a friend of Keith's; we trust him.

Either we sell the house or we don't.

If we don't, we crash and burn and live our lives trapped in a hell of our own making.

If we do, we finally get the peace and comfort we have worked our whole lives for.

2022 has been an up and down fucked up year.

The roller coaster ride continues.

The Worst Words

 "And now it's too late."

8/1/2022

Today is August 1.

Residents of New England: Wake the fuck up.

Residents of the rest of the United States: Congratulations on the wise choice you made to live somewhere - anywhere - else.