This Old Life

Things are different now. My computer crashed, for example, forcing me to listen to the crackling of this tiny 1999 version of a Mac as I make one more attempt to tell you what you need to know. But that sounds a bit dramatic. And I don’t want to be dramatic. I want to be steady – especially for you.

So let me start over.

I am well. And you?

But that’s not true, really. Because I feel like I’ve been slowly stripped of the devices that I thought were making me feel “well.”

So let’s try this again.

Everything feels like it’s been stood on its head. And you?

But wait, that makes it sound like I’m not well and, worse, stymied by a technological glitch in my otherwise non-technical life. What would the neighbors think?

The truth is: I’m not sure how I’m doing. Like I told the assistant at the veterinarian’s office this morning: “Life is life.” She told me that sounded like a song. But I didn’t feel like singing it.

I had to bring my dog, Buddy, into the animal hospital this morning to have his anal glands checked. Really. Because, for the last couple of days, he’s been dragging his ass on anything he could manage to drag his ass on.

The anal gland check was a lot like I thought it would be: Rubber gloves, jelly, and some finger massaging. I didn’t, however, know how to take these words from the good animal doctor as she slid her finger into my dog’s ass: “Dogs don’t seem to mind it as much as people.”

“Which people?” I thought, but did not verbalize.

The dog will be fine. The owner? Not so sure yet, mostly because I’m still hungry but unable to eat after a rather Midwestern-guy-type reaction to the “procedure.”

But that’s not why you come here, is it? Sorry.

It’s just that the humming of this tiny Mac and the randomness of its willingness to send the cursor to places I – as the writer – did not intend makes me jumpy in my thoughts. And, worse, it is not loaded with the music I have become accustomed to writing to. Basically, I’m out of sorts.

But don’t worry, I’m slogging through it all.

I have, for example, come to realize that the great challenge of “our” generation will be to combat debt and boredom. I know, I know, it’s nothing heroic like the defeat of Nazism and the like, but it is what it is. And as much as our very fearful leaders want us to believe we’re fighting for something more noble, the truth is what the truth is: We’re a wayward lot hoodwinked by faux entertainment (read: busy-ness), fooled into false goals (read: fight terrorism) and seduced by the promise of relaxation (read: debt).

In other words, our Pearl Harbor – or 9/11 – comes monthly when that bastard of a mailman has the audacity of delivering our credit card bills. Fucker. We must defeat him. And, let’s face it, it usually is “him.”

And when I haven’t been dreading the mailman terrorist, I have been planning for the apocalypse by planting a garden for a small commune (but with a household of a mere three), splitting wood for a village (and living in an old farmhouse that needs it) and educating a child who is increasingly realizing that her father is nuts (and failing to counter her expert analysis).

But let me know if your dog needs his anal glands checked, I’ve got some experience. And, from what I’m told, I’m cheap.

Carry on.