Some of us old farts are sane.....I think.

What about today’s geezers? Does anyone outside of our own brotherhood take us seriously? Are we more, or less relevant? It depends on a number of conditions I suppose. Once upon a time in the more “natural” and “traditional” cultures, older, penis-endowed humans were honored, even revered as “Elders”. Today’s geezers are more often figures of ridicule and the butts of jokes and jibes. In the more enlightened times of yore, entire communities often relied on them for wisdom and advice. (Yes, of course the crones were honored as well, but I can’t truly see the world through the lens of their plumbing, so I have to go with what I know, or at least have experienced directly, though I am not entirely sure what it is that I truly “know.”) These societies were often close to the land, closely ordered, and small and tribal, as well as frequently small-minded. It doesn’t work that way anymore. Things have changed except for the small-minded bit. We are certainly no longer close-knit and/or small scale. These days we’re lucky if we even know the names of our neighbors. I realize I am painting with a broad blunt brush here, but in general in the USofA, we are fragmented, segmented, divided and separated by, among other things, a common language. Other conditions exacerbate the situation as well. We are also relentlessly gnawed on by a predatory political, social and economic system that feeds on and needs disunion among us to continue. As a result we have large numbers of strident, illiterate, mostly amoral agglomerations of human beings of all ages and genders who indulge in the grossest, most excessive behavior imaginable with virtually no repercussions or consequences for their majority of their unappealing, unappetizing actions. These agglomerations may feel and see themselves as forming “special interest” groups. Certainly the AARP falls into this category. But others are little more than gangs that claim to have unique and even god-given rights, e.g., the NRA, the Tea partiers or any political group for that matter (including both the Republican and Democrat parties). But essentially many of these groups are in fact, more often than not, posturing, blustering, boisterous, brutal, bigoted thugs, pumped by fantasies of their own invincibility. Occasionally their machinations are subtle and go unnoticed by a distracted and easily distractible (as well as easily bribable) media. It all makes for a raucous circus of circumstances and situations. It can be entertaining. If you can look at it all in the right frame of mind. We have a societal/cultural landscape of infinite variety that frequently yields up events, enterprises and notions that have a truly spectacular hilarity about them. For instance, given the tenor of these tension-taut times, our “government” has been easily duped into believing its own boosterism. It is almost fanatical in its belief that the USofA is a divinely inspired and ordained engine of truth, justice, and freedom. Now that really is hilarious. Anyway. I have strayed once again, as geezers are wont to do, from the trail I thought I was following. 

Ah, here’s the trail again, I think; it seems like familiar territory anyway. As recently as 60 years ago, old guys might at least have been given some deference and respect just because they had triumphed into their 6th decade, beating the odds of physical decay and mental erosion. Not so any more. In terms of daily, ordinary idolatry, we live in a culture that reveres youth. It also gives a lot of preferential treatment and accolades even to men in their early middle age (EMA).This is really unfortunate since EMA is the age in a man’s life when he is usually insufferably smug, censorious and self-righteous. It is a time of life of the male of our species when we are even less susceptible to self-correction and self-awareness than we were when we were in our insufferable teens and 20s. Us geezers have been there already so we know these things. Many men, especially in the USofA, like this time in their lives so much that they try to extend it for as long as possible. We see this most especially in entertainers, including politicians, and Hollywood actors. It takes a lot of chemicals, a lot of “special effects” and a lot of stunt doubles to pull this off this kind of pretense, which is something us ordinary guys can’t manage at all, ever. We don’t have access to this celluloid fountain of youth. Examples of guys trying to peddle an imager of never-ending sexual prowess and machismo are too numerous to mention. Occasionally there is some mind-bending example of a man not knowing when to admit to his diminished stamina. Nelson Rockefeller springs to mind as one.

I do feel some pity for millions of EMA men. These days those years of their lives seem to be a time when more and more of them suffer from “erectile dysfunction.” I realize it may have just been one of those taboo topics when I was caught up in EMA, but I don’t recall that it was a widespread “disorder” back in the 30 or 40 years ago. But perhaps it was and I just didn’t know anyone who was open about it. It must be not only embarrassing, but downright psychologically devastating to be unable to get it up when you are only in your 30s or 40s or even 50s. Can you imagine the indignity of having the wherewithal to toot around in a BMW or some other symbol of rooster-like manliness but you can’t get your cock to a standing position without a couple of splints tied to it, a penis pump and a Cialis cocktail? I can’t imagine it actually and I don’t believe for a minute that I am endowed with an excess of testosterone. Time for a short bray: I got damped down some for a brief while in my 60s when I took some prescribed rialin; the ED lasted only until I stopped taking it. Now I am in my 70s and I still enjoy woodies often and regularly. As to my stamina I can’t be entirely sure. I also can’t vouch for the viability of my sperm either. That’s yet another problem that seems to be afflicting men of EMA. As for me, I am not planning to have a blob of them do a test swim though. I don’t feel compelled to sire again, despite my occasional ambitions to have the goat-like randiness of Pablo Picasso. As to the causes of ED in those EMA menfolk: Maybe it’s something in the food they eat.

Being an elder should be a kind of honorific position. It comes with the territory of being old(er), of having reached a certain chronological goal post. But it should be assumed as a right, no matter no minor or tenuous. It shouldn't require self-addulation or self-promotion, and it definitely shouldn’t require accumulating power, property and wealth. It shouldn’t require a particular skin color, ethnicity or religious conviction. But like many things in the USofA, it often does. And of course anything and everything is up for sale. We all know how that works, don’t we? And bye the bye, (or is it buy to buy?) if you are black, brown or seen as anything other than white, and/or if you have no financial wherewithal, IOW, if you ain’t got the dough-re-me, you are probably SOL on all fronts, including having even ordinary status no matter what your age. Fall into any of a number of shaded categories and it is likely, probable even, that you will be treated even more unfairly, maliciously and contemptuously by the System. Yet entire cadres and boardrooms of toxically rich, old white blowhards, like Donald Trump and that Koch duo — I’ve always wondered if those two, or maybe all three, share a common penis — have purchased their status as listened-to elder statesmen. Personally I’d rather listen to fingernails scratching across a blackboard than listen to their self-aggrandizing prattle. (As to that other old tail-chasing Donald, Mr. Sterling from LA, his opinions are almost beyond the reach of satire. They lay bare the true character of a man way past redemption. A man whose wealth and swagger have allowed him to flame across the national consciousness and conscience bedecked in silk Armani suits rather than the cone-topped KKK outfit he should be wearing. But I guess we all can see that costume clearly enough now.) But I promised myself I wouldn’t wander too far afield, too often from matters at lest somewhat related to geezer-ness. Apparently it’s a promise I can’t keep, like promising to think always in a rational way or stay inside the lines when I walk and talk.

All of this rambling is not meant to plead for or press the case for treating all of us geezers as omniscient or even sane and sober elders. It is merely my wandering observations on the days of our lives as the world turns here in this particular spot on the globe. Perhaps I should cue up the martial music and run the Viagra ads for any younger readers. "Just saying'."

An April Fool considers Noah

As this whole blog is (d)evolving into a celebration of sidebars, here’s another…But bear in mind as you read this, or anything else at all really, that there are no final “right” answers, though there are some that seem to fit our situations, both macro and micro, better…sometimes. IN the end how and what you choose to do becomes a matter of context and belief dancing together. Dying well, is as important or maybe even more important than living well. No matter, we have to do it, die that is. It is a requirement of living, it comes with your admission ticket. And so we can segue into ….Noah…maybe …it will be a bit of ramble. When I began all of this, it seemed to hang together, it seemed to make sense, at least for a few moments, a little sense only, but now…it’s more of an olio of notions looking for a point…but then is having a point really that necessary? Beside, it’s April fools’ Day....or it was just a moment ago..... Rabbit, rabbit.

As we bemoan the state and fate of the planet, our own and only lifeboat, our Big Blue/Green but increasingly brown earth or Gaia, in our longings and our fantasies we jabber about rescue vessels, “arks” and “rafts” and “parachutes”. All around us “climate change”, “resource depletion”, “social unrest”, et.al. and etc., etc. grind on relentlessly,  as George Harrison says, “within you and without you.” Will collapse be long and slow, or swift, or stuttering? Take your pick. By all measures, the decline of our life sources, is well underway and will continue despite any of our “best”, efforts to retard or halt it. Most of us humans seem to equate saving the planet primarily with saving ourselves either as individuals, families, nations, races or even as a species. It’s a point of view that some of us believe probably needs more thorough discussion. Anyway. Whatever approaches and procedures and techniques and processes and programs are devised and proposed, all of them somehow seem, well, insufficient. It is preposterous and arrogant to imagine that we can, or should, for that matter, as IBM would have us attempt, “build a better planet”. The magnitude and intricacies of the conundrum of life on the planet is far beyond our puny capacity to correct or better it. The suggestions for interventions range from the practical and literally down to earth, to bizarrely fanciful, imagining not merely technological “miracles”, but “divine” intervention as well. There’s an extensive menu of approaches to choose from. Make your choice. I’ve opted for the down to earth.

Recently one of my housemates together with another close friend, flew across the continent to attend and make a presentation at a “permaculture” conference in California. “Permaculture” is a spicy and prickly mix of practice and philosophy that has attracted a wide range of folks from everywhere on the face of the planet. Most of it's advocates see permaculture as a way to protect and save, even restore and regenerate the earth from its increasingly degraded state. In fact, some of them believe passionately that permaculture is The Only Way to save the planet. IMO: those guys are yet another cadre of zealots close to if not actually far out on the fringe. Nonetheless.

This conference was a gala event in the permaculture world. It featured many if not most of the current “big names” in the field as well as some luminaries who are usually seen as supporters or friends of the movement. Despite its outrageously large “carbon footprint”, its outlines probably still visible somewhere near San Diego, the conference was as a big success, generating nearly universally positive commentary. (Here are some links.) As usual at permaculture gatherings among the attendees there were the cheerleaders, the grumblers and the doubters and the nit pickers…but that’s par for the course. When you have a big lumbering shaggy beast like permaculture, it’s bound to have its following flock of carrion birds and clusters of chirpers, as well as swarms of pests and cadres of dung beetles. All ecosystems have similar entourages of players and parasites. We’re all on the curve somewhere. But ya Gotta love them all. Together they make a sloppy, sexy whole. Open those mental and physical arms to embrace as many as you can. This conference was, overall, an important gathering of the tribe, if not equivalent to the delivery of the 10 commandments by a multitude of Moses’s (permaculture has its 12 ‘Principles” BTW). They compared notes, raised awareness and hopes, and shared some good tales. All of us still eating and sleeping and shitting have a seat on this train whether in first class, in coach or merely in the baggage car. No matter whether you are a true believer or not, now is the time to catch a seat on the local. So stay tuned, in whatever way and to whatever extent you choose, to catch each daily trip and keep an eye out for your stop. 

And here is where my thought stream seems to waver but also to be tenuously connected to notions of saving the earth, ideas about arks and fancies about Noah. Maybe it’s just the scent of spring beginning to seep out of the soil stoning my sense, but as far as I can tell, Spring is still mostly hiding out somewhere in the hills of North Carolina. A friend of mine “down there” near Cherokee tells me the pears and cherries are in full flower. Around here I have seen some pale green daffodil shoots poking up through the mulch, but nothing else, not even a single crocus. Our pear tree’s buds are still challenging the remaining winter drafts, holding up their tiny, tight little fists to the grey skies. But with today’s temperatures finally up into the low 50s I’m going to chant something other than Ezra Pound’s “Winter is a comin’ in, louda’ sing goddamn.” The sweet smell of spring earth is tantalizing my taste buds this morning, even though the actual planting of seeds and popping in transplants in the open ground is still weeks away….. unless, that is, you have a greenhouse or a hoop house. A personal and private ark of life. 

I’ve got one of the latter and it’s a tight little craft about 9’ by 12’. Its withstood heavy buffeting by winter winds and the weight of three feet of snow. It has been the source of a winter-long growing experiment or vanity project, depending on how you look at it. I have been keeping alive three dozen or so annual vegetable plants. They have survived temperatures bottoming out at zero and multiple nights in single digits. They are all “greens”….four varieties of lettuce, three varieties of chard, and a single gnarly-looking Russian Red Kale plant thrown in for the hell of it. If I want to give the entire enterprise an inflated psychological importance I could also describe it….with a mostly straight face…. as a confused manifestation of my relationship to the planet and my inflated sense of individual expression and control. But lately an unbidden visitor took up residence in the hoop house. Must have thought they had reached Shangri-la. And because of his or her presence I was confronted with having to consider matters of what Garret Hardin, the author of Tragedy of the Commons, calls “lifeboat ethics”. And in this instance I got to make the selection. I had come to a kind of Noah moment. 

The first rule of being Noah, even a mini-Noah, is to acknowledge that room and resources on the ark are limited and tickets are really scarce and not actually for sale. and that if any are to survive then only some can survive; in short, not all creatures, including humans, make it onto the ark. This little critter

is one that didn’t make it, though obviously his forebears did. He wasn’t welcome in my particular lifeboat. Why? Well, I usually allow for a critter share of 10-15%. He took about 25% or more. The USofA is doing the same on the planet. So, what about us? We're certainly taking more than our share IMO. Not exactly the behavior of a thoughtful guest.  How welcome are we? Are we welcome on the Big Ark? In the larger scheme of things it will be clear at some point to everyone that the Big Ark is going down, and  that not all humans will make it onto the ark. It’s damn clear that we probably aren’t going to be invited on to the secret escape pods the corporate and military elites are supposedly building. It is likely, in fact, that there may not be any arks anywhere, at any cost. Truthfully, most of us on the Big Ark are really no more than ballast anyway. This is not a moral observation, but a factual one. AND the reality is that IF ANY humans are to survive, most of us will have to be thrown over the side. The BIG FACT is that our ark is mostly full of lifeforms other than humans and that the humans that are on board even now are beholden to these entities for our continued existence. How all of this gets sorted out in the next generation or so remains to be seen. But it will get sorted out one way or the other. Right now it seems to be that humans continue to believe that they are in the control business, when they can’t in fact, even manage the rescue business. What a sorry lot we humans usually seem to be when put under pressure, divine or otherwise. How each of us chooses to behave will become clear soon enough. I can feel that all of this is somehow relevant to the Noah myth but damned if I can spell it all out cogently right now.

BTW: As to the Noah story: I promised God not to spoil it for you by telling you how it ends.

Meanwhile there is this to consider:

When Death Comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Some initial thoughts about purpose

Only three entries so far bespeaks my difficulty with maintaining a clear focus as well as momentum for this “blog”. Sometimes, maybe even often, I can feel my impetus for writing it become softened and flaccid. Those are the moments when I need some literary Viagra, or at least good jolt of caffeine, or weed perhaps….though weed can also push me into reveries and feverish longings that wander through the past rather than scavenge the present or anticipate a future. According to the cadre of therapists among whom I hung for a while, my “issues” were part of a lifetime pattern of avoidance of commitment and a persistent persistence problem. Hmm. Okay. Off the track I am. I began this riff considering intentions and motivations. Let me address that. Indeed I will wade into the murky fen of purpose, but I don not expect to find an answer yet.....

First off there is the matter of context. Life in general in this age of technological toxicity and the apparently genial and unthinking corporate crushing of the planet, has so befuddled my mind that any previous clarity has become cloudy. I often find myself drifting in a miasma of existential angst. All of my previous certainty of my life’s purposes has become increasingly vague and spongey. My existence often seems picayune and pointless. As I have become more and more aware of my own minuteness, I have become, ironically perhaps, more easily distracted and susceptible to promising seductions of the senses and the brain. The weather in my gut, the tone of day set by a sticky lingering dream, or the intrusion of external chaos around the house or around the world, just to name three potential generic disrupters, can easily muscle aside all of my good intentions. These days it doesn’t take much to nudge me “off message”. All too often, instead of smelling the roses and enjoying the rejuvenating breath of a caressing breeze, I feel, in addition to gluey ennui, a generalized pressure, a franticness, fanaticism and agitated despair of a culture in decay and decline. Though I look for the songbirds of happiness I usually see no birds at all, except black birds of prey and swarms of grey drones. In fact, the last truly colorful bird I saw, was a Baltimore Oriole. It appeared to have battered itself to death against the window of an earth mover and was lying in the mud next to the machine’s tire and a smushed coke can. Its appearance was so stunning it took my breath away.

And yet, there are also days when the sun touches my face with the softness of a lover’s caress. I can smell the soil warming into a sweet frenzy of living perfume. I can sense the vibrations of the microbes adancing and the earthworms waltzing to the rhythm of cosmic turnings. In those moments Gaia herself struts and stretches, her naked beauty irresistible, mesmerizing, lush and creamy. On those nights, the Coyotes howl, owls hoot, and luna moths congregate in congress on the window sills; all seems for the moment balanced and luscious, right and fit. In those moments I feel I am an inseparable, essential part of it all. I am loved to my core by a benevolent spirit. In those moments I am absorbed into Gaia’s embracing grace and experience peace, place and purpose. Even with my stiff limbs and crackling joints,in those moments I can dance. SO I guess it’s time to pick up the bone of “why?” and chew on it for a while.

Why, why, and again why am I writing this at all? I suspect mostly to please myself, to see my thoughts laid out in words and marvel at their aptness or its absence. I take a soupçon of selfish delight in my occasional cleverness, or elegance and grace of expression, and just as often I cringe. All of it is a constantly leavening growth. A lumpy, doughy neediness to “express myself” lodged in my psyche, like an undigested potato. I suspect you’re familiar with that feeling too, that churning desire to spout off about “things”. Coupled with this, and to take a therapeutic tack, I share with most men a compulsion probably more peculiar to our gender than to women. This compulsion is initially honed and encouraged by our parents or guardians. What is it? Simply to be the alpha male in at least some arena or other of our lives. All of this bespeaks a hungry ego which I am unable to cleanse from my psyche. But then, why should I really? Is it necessary to purge myself of this sometimes dodgy desire, or should I just let it be part of who I am. After all, I am no saint or bodhisatva, nor do I strive to be one. I was indoctrinated into mild-mannered and self-effacing Christianity, not the muscular, boisterous and belligerent Christianity that to seems to me to be more devilish than godlike.

Like most writing of this sort, and perhaps most writing in general, is that it is basically an act of vanity of a sort…the vanity of giving voice to individuality. And like all acts of individuality, though it be constant, and loud or soft, it is as certain, as malleable and as changeable as water. 

Next time around I’ll get back to geezer-ness….maybe….though

Bladder adventures

A day in the life…for now at least

Awoke at 6:10. Laid in bed for a while. It was warm but empty. I thought about times when it wasn’t empty. The house was cold, the floors were cold, my brain was cold. Though there was a blooming bright line of rosy orange arising over the trees toward the east, it was a cold fire. Shrugging off the warm bed clothes I went to the kitchen, put some water in the kettle for coffee, set it on the stove, turned on the flame and then headed for the bathroom. Images abound in my head: I am a pinkish sack of yellow fluid waiting to be drained, an old wine cask that needs to be flushed, and old tree needing to be tapped. And like trees of whatever age, the sap is always running.

Conditions being what they are at the moment, i. e., my prostate having blossomed to a size large enough to block my bladder, I am compelled to push a plastic tube up my penis. All the way up. Like praying to Allah, I will repeat this activity five times each and every day for a while. Though I don’t face east towards Mecca, like a faithful pilgrim I am striving for salvation, relief from internal pressures and the soothing balm of release. “Magic 3: Please deliver me over.”

I have found it is best to make the catheterization a ritual. That way my mind and my body are composed and calm. Here’s the set up of the bathroom and its contents: There is a wide sliding wooden pocket door to the room, which was originally designed for someone with ALS. The floor is tiled, small squares with pastel colors, there is a railing next to the toilet, and there is one in the shower as well. You could roll right into the shower if you were on a wheelchair. So far I am still walking. As I enter the bathroom, there is a cube shaped basket on the right. It’s where I will sit for the catheterization ritual. It is about 18” wide, 14” deep and 15“ high. There is a towel-covered, 3”inch thick piece of foam inset into its top. It’s a welcoming soft green color. There is a pull-out drawer beneath this which holds extra towels and wash cloths. It's quite comfortable an commodious. The catheters are three or four steps across the room on a similar cube basket next to the bathroom sink. In their box they look like a bouquet of thin grey snakes. 

The devices that have been prescribed for me are “Magic 3, intermittent catheters with Sure-Grip™.” This latter little gismo is merely a funnel shaped, green plastic thingy that slides over the shaft of the catheter. It has some sort of markings and or sticky materials on its insides that allow it to clasp firmly to the catheter tube. The “Magic 3” is made in the USA by the Rochester Medical Corporation of Stewartville, Minnesota. While I can’t exactly say that I love these catheters, I sure am grateful for them. They are made of hydrophilic coated silicone and the ones I use have a “coude” tip. This feature allows the catheter to ease more smoothly past my puffed up prostate. The whole thing is 16” long and is 4.7 mm in diameter. Looking at it, it is hard to imagine pushing something that long up my dick, but, I can and I do. Each catheter comes in its own individual package like a Slim Jim. There is a 2”-long silver lozenge-shaped envelope of sterile water in each package that must be squished open before using the catheter. It lubricates the whole thing.

It looks like this. 

the "Magic 3"

Here’s the procedure: I grab a catheter pack, an alcohol swab, a plastic portable urine bottle with handy gradations marks on the side like a measuring cup, and a towel. I set the catheter and the swab pack on the cube-shaped basket seat. Before I sit down I loosen my belt, lower my jeans and my underwear, boxers of course. BTW: some shade of blue is the dominant color. Next I sit and settle in. It is important to sit with your nut sack dangling over the edge of the seat. This keeps the testes out of the way and makes the penis more freely accessible. Of course the nut sack will only dangle if the room temperature is above at least 62. If it isn’t the scrotum will pull toward the body and the nuts will clump. Only happened once, but that was enuf. I think we keep the house too cold. Next I push down the clothing rumpled between my ankles to make a little “pocket”. I lay the towel over this and tamp it down too. Then I nestle the urine collecting bottle in the pocket, aiming the slightly crooked, gaping open neck towards me. An image of hungry baby birds flashes across my mind. Next I open the swab pack, remove the alcohol soaked fabric and clean off the end of my penis. Though I know full well where its been, I don’t want any opportunistic microbes carried up the urethra by catheter and setting up housekeeping in my urinary tract. I set the swab aside. Next I pick up the catheter package and, before opening it, squeeze the foil envelope of sterile water inside until it bursts. I tip the catheter pack  back and forth a couple of times to spread the water along the shaft. Now it’s time to separate the flaps at the end of the pack and peel them apart. This exposes the green Sure Grip ™ which I pinch between the fingers of my right hand. With my left hand fingers I pull down one flap exposing more of the catheter. Keeping a firm grip on the Grip with my right hand I pull the catheter from its sheath of plastic, tugging the sheath down with my left hand. I do all of this with a methodical pace. I learned from one night’s rushed attempt that being deliberate and relatively slow is the way to go. That night I lost my hold on the Grip and in some spasmodic gesture that I still can’t figure out, the entire catheter squirted out of the sheath as the Grip flew off in another direction and landed somewhere else… under a shoe I later found it. The catheter itself dropped and flopped once on the rug like an exhausted, limp eel.

After I have pulled the Grip down to a point about 6 or so inches from the end and peeled back the flap some, I pull the whole catheter out. Now its insertion time. At this point it is essential that the coude tip, which is canted at a slight angle, is pointed upward at my nose. If the tip is tilted down or angled to one side or the other the catheter will not only not go into the urethra smoothly, when it reaches the prostate it will cause a sharp pain and probably scrap the prostate enough to cause it to bleed. This has happened a couple of times during my efforts and it is always unsettling….pain and blood are not results you want from this procedure. I adjust the angle with my left hand.

I insert the catheter, slowly, a couple of inches or so at a time, pushing with my right hand. The oddness of the sensation of an object, even a slender, slippery one sliding up inside the penis never quite goes away. When I reach the prostate there is a sudden resistance and a twinge of pain. This is the only tricky bit. It always takes a little effort to get the tip of the catheter past the prostate and on up into the bladder. If the angle is off on the catheter it will not move and will even resist going on up into the bladder. But once it is in the bladder, the urine begins to flow. At this point I put the open end of the catheter into the plastic container and wait for the piss to stop. It doesn’t come in a gush but in a steady yellow stream. It makes soft splattering and dripping sounds. A joyful noise actually, that I have come to welcome. After some seconds, the time varies depending on the amount of urine in the bladder, it suddenly stops as though a spigot had been turned off. Using the Grip I slowly pull the catheter out until it is free of the penis. Pulling it out quickly is uncomfortable and certainly unnecessary. Every step done slowly and deliberately will ensure a smooth and successful draining. With my left hand I remove the container from its place between my ankles and set it aside. Holding the used catheter in my right hand I walk it over to the trash and put it in a plastic bag together with the other discarded materials, the sheath and the alcohol swab. Tidying up done, I pull up my shorts, tuck down my shirt, pull up my jeans and buckle my belt. Ever the naturalist, I then note in my iPhone the time of the catheterization and the amount of urine I have collected. Soon I will be saving it to make fertilizer for this year’s seedlings, but not quite yet. 

So it is ta ta for now. My ablutions and my ablations done, I’m now ready to stomp out into the world. I’ll be sitting there again in a few short hours, facing south, day or night. I have once again been delivered. Amen.

                                                                 

And Geezers are?

Let’s get some perspective on this.    we are a sub-sub sub species in the scheme of things. And to put us in demographic context, there are more and more of us everyday despite continual attrition. This wasn’t always true, of course, but given the capacity of humans to linger longer, at least in the “developed world”…(and there’s an entire book in that somewhere)…our numbers increase every day. 

SO what are and who are we?

There isn’t complete consensus on this. Definitions of “geezer” found on the internet are terse but fuzzy. I appreciate this one in particular. (Sorry I failed to note its exact origin.)

It brings in not only history but a faint whiff of the arts. It also offers up the notion that there is little except time-alive-in-human-society-on-the-planet that separates childhood and old age. The two are curiously, perhaps necessarily, interwoven. Moreover, it is safe to say that we geezers often act like children, but then, according to many middle aged folks who seem so often to be both stodgy and censorious, everyone but them is childish or vaguely out of control and rebellious.

“gee·zer  

n. Slang

An old person, especially an eccentric old man.

[Probably alteration of dialectal guiser, masquerader, from Middle English gysar, from gysen, to dress, from gyse, guise, fashion; see guise.]

Word History: A relationship with a word we know well is disguised in the word geezer. A clue to this relationship is found in British dialect. The English Dialect Dictionary defines geezer as "a queer character, a strangely-acting person," and refers the reader to guiser, "a mummer, masquerader." The citations for guiser refer to practices such as the following: "People, usually children ... go about on Christmas Eve, singing, wearing masks, or otherwise disguised," the last word of this passage being the one to which geezer is related.””

With that semi-formal bit of categorizing out of the way let me lay out my own criteria. First off we must address the issue of GENDER. When most of us picture a “geezer” in our mind’s eyes, I’ll bet that 90% of the time we see a man. In this blog, “geezer” will define a certain subset of males. Thus, having testicles, well one at least, hanging in a scrotum and accompanied by a penis are mandatory to belong to this group. This doesn’t mean that I necessarily want to exclude women from this particular club, but given the rest of the defining traits, I don’t imagine that most women would want to be considered geezers. It is a fraternity, not a sorority, though I am remain open to reconsidering this gender proscription.

AGE: No matter what gender or mix thereof however, a principal requirement of geezerhood is to be of a certain age. While I don’t think there is a clearcut age minimum for admittance, I don’t really consider anyone under 60 as actually eligible. You’ll just have to wait until your time arrives.

Geezerhood does overtake one much as a shadow will as the sun moves. It’s not a bad thing really. Fighting it is futile. Like the Borg it will absorb you. Better to embrace the condition as it evolves that have it surprise and startle you like an unwelcome old lover at a family reunion. Take up your geezer status with relish, embrace it with demented glee and a rolling of the eyes. It is the surf of life compadre so sit on the beach of your life and let it roll you around on the sand. 

APPEARANCE: a first note with more to follow.

These days, there is an entire cadre of geezers who don’t look their age, or try damn hard not to. These guys are often self-congratulating types and even more often they are in the appearance or posturing business, like actors and politicians or businessmen with yen to spend and a yen to look like they’re 40-something. Dick Clark is/was the poster child for this sub-group of geezers. He was so obviously a geezer but he looked like he had been popping botox in a back booth in a lounge at the Ritz. It seems wise to me to embrace both your outer as well as your inner geezer. Some Hollywood geezers have done just that, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood for instance. Someday maybe Sly Stallone will realize that he too has a flabby badder and rumpled derma just like the rest of us.

who?.....sort of

To be or not to be a geezer? Did I take up geezering or was it thrust upon me? It is a legitimate Hamlet-onian question I believe. And it deserves consideration, though such an inquiry is probably only a diverting side show and a unnecessary and unfulfilling one at that. I am a geezer through and through by virtue of my gender and my age and my delicate frame of mind. It is an inevitable side effect of growing long in the tooth…. I have outlived my father, not only in real time but in years. He was only 62 when died; I am 72. But I, like he did, have an enlarged prostate. (It's probably about the size of a healthy Meyer lemon … though better an enlarged prostate than a fat ego...perhaps. Though that is another debatable proposition.) I have also outlived Montaigne. He died at the age of 59. He lived in France in the 1500s. He inherited wealth and position and hung out in a chamber in his manor house when he wasn't acting in his role as a local politician. There were no blogs back then so Montaigne invented them in a sense. He penned lots of essays. While his writings are far more insightful and profound than mine, they lack my gift for opaque turgidity and clumsy expression. His writings also don't have the time-stamped-and-locked cultural banality and bias that are such an integral part of my scratchings. However, I would like my pieces to have brisk, breezy and easily forgettable messages and readily disposable, use-once only moral observations that are of great convenience in this age of cheesy verbal handi-wipes. We'll just have to see if they can live up to that standard.