Thursday, December 19, 2013

Writer's Block, Aging, And Cheese

I'm in a mood to write.

That's especially frustrating at the moment because I have writer's block, which is the cognitive equivalent of having eaten one plate of spaghetti too many. Actually, what bugs me so much about this isn't that there isn't anything to talk about, but too much. With that in mind, I choose to talk about how I'm aging like Wisconsin Cheddar cheese, and overcoming that.

When I woke up early yesterday morning, it didn't occur to me to write anything. It only occurred to me that my fifty-two year old knees hurt so much that sometimes I can't decide whether to groan like an old man or cry like a little girl. Since I live alone, I initially opted for the latter since no one was here to witness the self-inflicted wound to my pride. Dang it, it turns out that my voice won't go up any octaves when I first awake. Crying like a five year old who lost her chalk for drawing hopscotch patterns on the sidewalk wouldn't be an option.

That left the old man routine. The old man routine is simple and straightforward: spend fifty-five seconds sitting up and rotating your lower body until your feet are facing the floor. Then, as slowly as you can, lower your feet until they make contact with the carpet. It is customary at this point to issue a barely audible grunt. (Note to first-timers: the grunt should only be issued by those of us who know what's coming next. Decorum demands that only those who are experienced with aging should grunt, since these unpleasant sounds must be earned.) This initial grunt is to mentally prepare one for what comes next.

Upon exhaling the initial grunt, place your hands on something which you can use to help you stand. This will be a shock to the system, but trust me. Standing -even under this circumstance- is worse than even daytime television. Your heart might beat a little faster, but it WILL slow down as you slowly gather speed, shuffling approximately twelve feet to the bathroom before forgetting that you really don't need to relieve yourself yet. This is the perfect time to walk flatfooted to the dining room -another four feet- to your bottle of orange-flavored daily chewable vitamins and biotin.

It should be at this point that you begin to lose the urge to shuffle back to bed and sleep until noon. Nope, you're already up and you've taken your One-A-Day. There's no turning back now. You're committed to this day. That's why, feeling grumpy and resenting that your eyelids are glued shut from sleep matter, you turn on the TV so you can grouse about the five or so attorney commercials urging anyone who ever had a mesh screen installed around their hips to "call now!" in order to cash in on yet another class action suit. Mumbling something rude about the never-ending commercial breaks which interrupt Gunsmoke reruns, you turn the station to any given news outlet, already knowing how futile this decision is since Obamacare is apparently the only topic deemed newsworthy by the national media outlets. This, of course, elicits a couple of epithets, though not issued forcefully since your knees are beginning to feel a bit better.

There really isn't much to say about aging, except that it's like still being young but a little rustier than you used to be. That isn't so bad, other than often feeling an urge to call someone to throw you a rope and yank you off of that great Sealy PosturePedic and into the real world.

A world filled, to a great extent, with people who needed to be lured off of the bed, often with a doughnut and a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll write about motivational pastries sometime.

Especially if they take my mind off of my knees.

 

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