June 02, 2006

i'll fall short

The menfolk in the Smith family tend to die young. My father set the all-time record for longevity for as far back as we can look up the family tree, and he lived to be 62 years old. It's a curse, I tell you!

I don't believe that I'll ever see the age of 62. I've gotta make eight more years to get there, and I'm logical enough to know that my track record of health over the past five years doesn't bode well for me. I'm not exactly robust and enjoying life anymore.

I find myself just trying my best to survive, and that hurts like hell every fucking day. I mean... c'mon, people... when you can't reach cans of soup in your kitchen cabinet anymore without knocking them to the floor with a broomstick, THAT ain't exactly like living the High Life.

When you have to go through all sorts of contortions and gyrations to put on a fucking tee-shirt in the morning, and you end up hurting so bad that you're seeing spots before your eyes and breathing heavily when you're done, that ain't LIVING, in my book. That's just being too stubborn to die.

I cannot enjoy life anymore. Hell, I always feared that arthritus (it runs in my family) would take my hands and I wouldn't be able to play musical instruments in my dotage. My fingers are fine now, but I don't play anymore because my SHOULDERS hurt when I try.

Living like this all by myself is amusing sometimes, in a perverse sort of way. When I wake up in the morning (if I sleep at all), I start a process of GETTING UP, which involves turning carefully and slowly onto my side, which hurts, and then trying to throw my legs over the side of the bed to kinda JACK myself into a sitting position without using my arms. I usually make a lot of "Oh! Oh, SHIT! FUCK! Goddam! Ow!" noises when I do that, but it works to get me outta bed. At least it has so far.

Once I get my feet on the floor, it's just a matter of lifting my bony ass off the bed with my legs (Pat Roberson--- eat your heart out), and then I sally forth the greet the new day.

I don't know how much longer I can keep doing that crap every morning. It's beginning to wear me down. When constant pain becomes the elevator music playing in your life, you begin to ignore it, until something turns the volume up REALLY LOUD all of a sudden. I never know when that's going to happen, but it does, every got-dam day.

When I talked to my buddy catfish the other day, I told him to let me know when the fish start biting in his pond. I think I can still wet a line and catch some fish if I cast while keeping both elbows tucked in close to my sides so that I don't use my shoulders at all. My days of trout-fishing in salt water are over, because I can't toss a line into a good drop using the pussy-assed technique I have to work with today.

But I still like to fish.

Hell... I still like pussy, too... but I've had all of THAT gash I ever wanted. At least when I catch a fish, I can either throw it into a bucket, take it home and eat it, or let it go back into the water. Wimmen are a lot like fish, except for the fact that you can't EVER throw one of them back. If they can't crawl into your vessel and stay there, saying that you OWE them something, they'll try to sink your fucking boat, as ANY sane, logical creature would do, given the same situation.

But... I digress...

I can't fish worth a shit anymore. I hurt all the time, every got-dam day. I have trouble showering or dressing myself.

Bejus. If I caught ME as a fish today, I would throw one of those back in the water.