It is harder than it used to be to feel refreshed after four hours of sleep.
I had thought that writing this would help exorcise some of the demons that tried to reside inside but it didn’t work as well as I had hoped.
For the first time in a long while it felt like dad had come to visit and so I roamed around my house silently working upon the list of things I have to do, occasionally asking him if he would care to show himself.
“Dad, if you don’t give me a sign I’ll look like just another crazy person.”
I heard my inner voice remind me I don’t care if I look crazy and I laughed.
“Did you hear that dad, I don’t care if people think I am crazy and since there is no one here I can do whatever the hell I want anyway.”
I gave him a quick summary of recent events, asked if he saw the stones on his stone and told him I was sorry we didn’t get to Jerusalem together.
Three different trips, but never one with him and mom so the promise I made about showing him a few places never happened.
There are bigger issues, but sometimes I think about that one.
A decade ago I had a medical procedure where I had to drop my pants and lie on my back while two or three nurses worked upon me.
I thought I heard one of them say to another he is just another naked man because one was embarrassed but I might be wrong.
Because I didn’t like that moment at all, if I had ever dreamed of being with a couple of women it wasn’t like that and I made a point to go somewhere else in my head.
It wasn’t because I was embarrassed but because I was physically uncomfortable and I needed to escape and the process was taking far too long.
If it happened again I would demand things go differently but if my hopes and dreams are realized it will never take place again.
Had a conversation with some of the guys about it and we laughed a bit about the joys of getting older and some of the crap that comes with it.
One of them asked me if I really wasn’t embarrassed and I said no. I know I don’t look like I did at 19 or 25.
Why should I be bothered by a medical procedure where I really didn’t look at their faces.
Not like we’re going to have some experience in public we’re they are going to look at me and say I look familiar.
I don’t plan on exposing myself on the subway, bus or airplane and my face isn’t that distinct so I think I am cool.
If I was going to be bothered by being naked it would be a different sort of naked, more of the emotional sort and even then I am so darn selective I don’t really worry about that either.
****
But I have thought a bit about the end of life medical stuff because if you compare notes with friends/family many of us had parents who needed more assistance at the end with daily living needs.
Dad never complained to me about it.
Made one comment, but it wasn’t really about that stuff, it was something else.
I hope to never experience what he did, but if I do I hope to have as much grace about it as he did.
Some people say I can be exhausting and some say I can be quite funny. I say I can be more than one thing and that the world needs more levity.
When I was a junior in college I had a little incident in the Sierra Tower. It was in between classes and I was heading down the stairs when I noticed that my shoe was untied. I stopped in place and bent over to tie my shoe.
The buy behind me must not have noticed and went right over my back and fell down two stairs and landed on his back. I stood up and ran over to him to ask if he was ok. He said hat he was fine and then told me that he was going to kill the guy that pushed him.
I saw a mountain masquerading as a man racing down the stairs and said “there he goes!” Clearly it wasn’t true but when “flat on his back boy” saw how big he was he reconsidered chasing him.
Sometimes I watch TBN and wonder if they got their hairdressing tips from watching The B52s in concert.
Jackie Mason used to have a line where he talked about how people say that if someone had said “just one more word, they would have killed them.” I always appreciated that story. I am still trying to figure out what word that would be.
If you had to choose between being called Meatball or Hot Pie which would it be? Really, I remember these guys in junior high who were called those names, can’t say that I want to be called either one.
****
Been a hell of a day, been kind of jet lagged but have been pushing hard.
Got deleted, blocked and unfriended and called names on Facebook. Did a chunk of prep work for the week, managed another 5 miles on the elliptical and shook my head when I didn’t see the weight just melt off of me.
Stared at my mug and willed the facial hair to grow faster and for my body to grow just a little taller.
Can’t say any of it worked other than the actual work I did so there is that.
Remembered a time when I was called an Uncivilized Barbarian and smiled because there is a title worth earning.
Sometimes my heart feels full and sometimes it feels…empty.
