Tele-Phone

This one is going to be really hard to see on a phone.  Funny.  I almost wrote "telephone."  How strange.  

I'll get this little bit of happy reporting out of the way.  When I walked into the Club Y yesterday, there was the tall, fit woman I wrote about.  She turned to me and lit up.  We chatted.  I tried.  But I got flummoxed.  I wanted to tell her how much I enjoyed her smile, but I have no idea what I actually said.  She was on her way out and I on my way in, and as we walked in seperate directions, I thought how awfully dumb I must have seemed.  A social moron.  Just verbally clumsy.  

At least I didn't soil myself.  

I had to call my primary care physician's office yesterday to get a refill on one of the two meds I take. I knew what was coming.  I had to make an appointment for my annual physical to get it.  I dread the whole thing.  Life only goes in one direction and the medical industry is there to help you.  Take the double entendre.  I read an article yesterday about how one medicine can cause symptoms that must be treated with another.  It snowballs as you go downhill.  Too many meds.  Blood tests reveal things that doctors twenty years ago never considered.  And that is all my doctor really does--look at the labs.  It scares the hell out of me.  

As I exercised in the hall of mirrors yesterday, I caught glimpses of myself I didn't want to see.  What happened?  I wondered if that was the same thing the tall, fit woman saw.  Life is taking its toll.  

And yet I am more popular than I deserve.  I don't seek people out, but I always greet them with a smile and a peace sign, and it breaks me up, really, that when people say hello to me they now reflexively shoot a peace sign, too.  It is kind of like a physical version of echolalia, perhaps.  Just an unconscious reflex.  

I find it charming.  

I fear, though, it is just a form of pity.  

"How old he has gotten.  He takes care of his mother, you know."

"Yes. Being a caregiver is hard.  Poor fellow."

While I'm whining--my hair looks awful.  I won't cut it short again.  It can look not hideous for a few moments a day, but my hair is fine and wavy and it just does stupid things when it is short.  It needs weight.  Until then, I should probably wear a hat. 

So that's me, all over the place.  I'm up, I'm down.  But the weather has been spooky good here this week. I say spooky because there have been no hurricanes.  Rather, we are having blue skies and soft temperatures.  Everyone has that look on their face and are walking on tip-toes so as not to jinx it.  

Last night, I told my mother I wanted to go for a sushi dinner.  I go early so as not to leave her alone too long.  I sat at the sushi bar, had "the usual," and was back to the car in half an hour.  I was in her house in time for the evening news.  

My big Friday night!!!

I can't stand watching television any longer.  I have done it to keep my mother company, but I can't do it anymore.  I slip into the other room and read and drink tea.  I have a cutoff time for drinking any alcohol now.  No sugar or snacks.  Reading before bed rather than watching tv, of course, helps me sleep better.  I think.  And without my sitting in the tv room with her, my mother goes to bed much earlier. 

"There's nothing on that stupid t.v.," she'll say.  

"Huh."

"Goodnight." 

I often wake with the book in my lap having fallen asleep in the lounger.  

Saturday.  There is a peace rally in the central park of my own hometown.  I might go down with a camera since these will be "out of towners" and not the Village People.  But I might not.  More photos of people milling about?  But, you know, it is a historic reflexion of the times.  

That's it.  All I got.  

Let's get mellow for the weekend.  Maybe I'll just roam.