The rain falls and I sit in darkness, a new morning at home - a new morning at what I must now call home, that is.
It is a home, somebody's. There are four walls and a door.
But I have that at work also.
I should probably stop buying camera gear. I am not even using it to document my gradual slide into late middle-age.
It's simple math. In the US a male is expected to live to be 77.4 years of age. This puts 25.8 years as the marker delineating each third of his life. Three of them, representing early, middle, and late life.
At 51.6 you are in your final years. April of 2020, I will arrive.
If you divide life into 1/4ths, which makes no sense, then still you are almost 60 before you hit your late stage. But doing this forces an unnatural fraction onto the art of living. It is best to stick with 1/3rds, like the riddle of the sphinx.
I have often arrived early. It is paradoxical. I am a tremendously lazy man but am also very prompt, usually.
I expect to arrive at 51.6 years of age sometime later this year, at 45, perhaps right on the border between here and 46. I like to be five minutes, or five years, early for everything. Then, I will document my slow slide towards the final observation, the statement which will be noted on the records as my last.
Mine will be, "I think I smell shit! Nurse, is that shit I smell? I can't see it, but I know it's under there."
They say that your hearing is the last thing to go in death, partially because it requires the least muscular involvement. So, I am going to pay somebody to sit next to my bed and describe the fires of hell to me, eternal torment in the hands of beelzebub.
Revisiting old memories, etc.
I am already half shitting myself just by still being here. It is remarkable, what happens to a man in gradual decline. Everybody wants to save him. He has outlived his usefulness in all but one way: his earning potential.
Old men are no longer as capable of processing things for the joy of others. This results in all sorts of changes that one must endure. Nobody wants to die alone, but nobody wants to die with others changing their diapers either, especially people they don't know.
I'd like to do both, but to reverse the process. I'd like my closest friends to start changing my diapers right away, and then leave me alone with my christian-for-hire, chanting brimstone lullabies to me in the gregorian fashion.
You are only as old as you feel, they say. Well, fuck them, I feel old. I am tired and my body doesn't heal as quickly any longer. Isn't that a form of dying? A sign of its onset?
I sprained my ankle in SF in October and it still hasn't healed completely. It was a reasonably mild sprain, all things considered. I could walk on it right away, though it was sore. Still now, if I sit with my legs crossed, as if to meditate, then it quickly becomes aggravated. It is not the inner space you wish to inhabit when meditating, the reminder of your own mortality through pain and agitation.
Well, perhaps this morning is not the time to contemplate my eventual demise; here in the early morning tertiary stage, I hope.
Die young, say many. And for some this strategy worked nearly without a hitch. It's a shrewd but sensible business model. It makes me wish I hadn't paid off my student loans.
Oh yeah... have I mentioned that here? I'm debt free! For the first time in my adult life I have no debts whatsoever. I have things that I have to pay, but no debt hanging over me.
I must seem very attractive to a potential female wooer, all that I lack now is a dowery and a few loose goats to be slaughtered for the wedding.
Whenever I hear about somebody coming into a large sum of money, if they're not young, I think to myself: What a shame, they'll probably just save most of it. It will all be lost to an investment bank somewhere.
You should only be allowed to win the lottery if you're under 25. Everybody can play, but only young people can win. That's how I would set it up.
My wishes would become law, my whims an edict to my people.
Then, I would charge the elderly to watch kids ruin their lives with all of that money. It would be on pay-per-view, which would be a requirement to purchase, part of the early-bird package, which also includes a cafeteria-style dinner.
I can just see all these terrible, aging lizards sitting at home watching tv, saying to themselves: I knew it, I just knew it. That little girl bought that red sports car. Yep, another one. Oh no, this was different from the other one. Oh, you know, she'll be outta' money in no time... I told you! Didn't I tell you? I can't wait to tell my grandkids. What she needs is a good investor, a financial advisor, not another foreign boyfriend. None of these damned kids know what to do with their money.
If my doctor says that it's okay then I might buy a new bike. I've just got to check with him first, make sure that my failing ass-ring can handle the pressure.
After that, I'll have to check my finances... I've been eyeing this metal detector that would be quite useful for my morning walks along the beach.
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