On Getting Older

I eat way too much.  If I really did what all those suck-ass experts told us we should do and wrote down everything I ate on a daily basis, I would kill more trees than all the junk mail in America.  I am sure that the listing itself would shock even me.  A handfull of crackers -- hell, several handfulls of crackers -- a few plates of cheese, a banana thrown for potassium, 1 piece of lunchmeat, little forkfulls of leftover dinner, some cottage cheese, pretzels with mustard, a frozen microwave shrimp tom tom soup, some pasta I made on Sunday that had asparagus and onion in it.  It's all good and all in 1 day.  I wouldn't be proud of this if someone was watching me and was listing the edible phone book listing of my day.  But since nobody is there, fuck it.  Given the genetics with which I have been grappling since high school, the real difference I can make in my body shape is minimal (really, please believe me).  So, what the heck -- eat up, Lew.

I know this is a blog about getting older and not eating but there is a connection.  I should eat less because my metabolism has been slowing down more than Sarah Palin's rotation in the political world.  I know I should eat less -- nobody has to tell me that.  I exercise every day -- almost every day.  Okay, at least 4 out of 7 days a week. 

My goal is to work out 6 days a week ever since Jerry read some hideous book entitled "Younger Than Last Year."  In that trash laden piece of dog doo, the authors told us that, if we wanted to remain movable into old age, we needed to work out a minimum of 6 days per week (really, what's left after that?  Do they not know there are only 7 days in a week).  This way, our body keeps shedding the old, nasty cells and replaces them with new, hairy good cells that don't smell so bad.  The result?  We can walk up and down stairs without stopping to . . . admire the butts of the young people ahead of us . . . I mean, without having to stop and catch our breaths or rub our knees.  Maybe it's true, I don't know. 

This is a long way of saying I work out lots.  As I tell anyone who will slow down near me, I work out more than other 51 year olds.  Of course, this is probably because many of my compatriots are either in states of abject denial or are dead.  Those few of us who remain  are just trying to maintain.  Maintain what I don't know.

Let's take sex.  My new theory on sex is that it is good.  So good in fact that I think about it pretty often.  Not as often as I used to -- not as often as I think of food which is really depressing.  But I think about it.  On to my theory.  When born, God imbues us with a maximum number of times DURING OUR LIFETIME  that we can have sex.  So, when Ponce de Leon was born, God might have given him 43 times to have sex during his lifetime. Once he hit that magic number, he was on his own which, by saying that, I do not mean he had to masturbate.  I just mean he could no longer have sex.  Another person, say poor Lady Bird Johnson, was only given 6 (imagine how Lyndon felt).  I think normal people are given between 100 and 200 just as a thought.  But of course I am not certain.  My point is that I have probably hit my maximum number and I have not realized it yet.  Try as I may, it just isn't in the cards.  It's not my fault.  To be honest, I think I peaked early which is a shame but I did not develop this theory until I was old.  I might have paced myself better had I known.  But you can't turn back time and you can't turn back the number of times you have had sex.  Now, I also recognize that I am 51 and a half years old so the possibility remains that at my age one would rather just sit and contemplate his 401k balance than have sex.  What do you think?  Maybe it's just old age.  The real shame here is that I do think about sex and, at my age, I do not worry about what is jiggling or shaking anymore so that is not the impediment that it once was.  Sometimes when the urge hits me, I think, well, I really have to get up early, or I should get up and brush my teeth first and by the time that's over I will be too tired.  Or have I just hit my maximum?  It's a good question.

There are other indignities of getting older but let me shortcut all of them by saying that they all have to do with really embarrassing things that doctors do to you.  At a younger age, when a doctor needed to see the things he now has to see on me, I would have to change doctors.  But, let's face it, the number of embarrassing places on my body outnumber the available physicians so I am out of luck.

I could go on and on about how awful and heart-wrenching it is to get old.  How bowel movements suddenly become exciting accomplishments.  How getting up to fill your glass of bourbon is actually exercise.  But I think, at this point, that it would just be repetitive.  What's the point?  Suffice it to say that getting old sucks but I would rather be old and boring and tired all the time and fat and have a bunion and take medication than . . . be dead.