Authenticity in Cyberspace ...

My oldest turned 47 yesterday in Korea and today here in the USA. How does that work? Birthday wishes on both days! ....... I was with that same online group in cyberspace, yesterday ... at least when my cardiac rhythm was cooperating. But first, the more stable my arrhythmias become, recently and maybe, the more surprised and maybe disappointed I become when I spend time with my sinus bloc not cooperating in sending out regular electrical cues for my atrium to beat at its usual 40 bpm. The doc with the new meds does have my vote and I am very appreciative of the improvement ... till two months ago about 50% of time in rhythm ... now about 85-90% of time my heart 'ain't misbehavin'. ............ Yesterday, it was a lovely ride with M whose arm is sending shooting pain signals ... top was down (the roadster's, that is) that followed a lengthy conversation with our youngest whose oldest was flying for a group religious and play adventure in the State of Israel and maybe Jordan.She'll meet with Israeli and Palestine kids her own age and talk of the madnesses of war. Einstein would be proud; I am enormously proud of my grand-daughter who also just received an award (to be conferred in Carnegie Hall) for her macabre writing. Our youngest's other kids and partner were away at a water theme park giving an opportunity for Mother and Father and grown spawn to talk of joys and distresses, while Grannie charted the 747's progress over the Atlantic. ...... Anycase, the ridewith M closed with ice cream ... the ice cream did something to Gus (my esophagus) which lays over one or another side of the Vegus nerve and heart and I was off to the races. The rest of day was spent in and out of rhythm. The talk was still very good ... the ride was good ... and even the online cyber-talk was good mixed in with a talk with sibling by phone (he was on the jazz) and friends for dinner who (anyway, the female partner) thought we should spend $4800 on a new mattress. Shit! My first new car in 1965 cost $2010..... But throughout this time, the oldsters on the listserv were bouncing between talking naughty (breasts and jock straps and the liberatiuon of body parts ... good thing corsets and girdles were not there to have me citing Scripture: Gird your Loins, sayeth the Lord, the time for rest is passing). .... All the odder that this seventh grade talk was in a mixture with questions of whether there could be true comradeship and joy (Alexander Woolcott?) and affection and relationship on line. .... A bunch of Players in the Last Quarter still questioning the authenticity of cybercommunication. .... Someone says: 'I hate you' and belief and , not infrequently, response follows. Another says: 'I love you' and doubt reigns. Hate is so much more believable than love ... accepted as so much more authentic. .... There was a frenchman 100 years ago who would attract people from around the world to form circles (the jerks IN the circle) an repeatedly recite: tous les jours a tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux. (Everyday in everyway we get better and better). Maybe I can get this group to which I belong to recite something similar about authenticity on our winding road that must've surpassed 3000 messages in a few months between about ten oldish farts and maybe one young one. Tevya whining to Goldie: Do you love me? Old whines in old bottles!

Senior Immunity

One might think that Players in the Last Quarter have earned a degree of immunity to the sillinesses that infect early life. Like many Players, I watch ... hell! When we're not in our Cialis claw-footed tubs with our much younger spouses, we must be observing the World and sharing our wisdom -- like Wise Ole King Soloman in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes -- with those younger and not so "in on the secrets" as we. ............ But like many other Players in the Fourth Quarter, I've been participating in listservs and discussion boards since about the time the Twin Towers came down, killing thousands, disturbing the tranquility of many families in the USA just as families in other war-torn countries have experienced forever, and leaving many feeling isolated and disconnected. I sought these online groups expecting friendly love and the affection that accrues to people who are members of groups. Church, Mosque and Synagogue have been infected by the rampant distrust that has grown in our lifetimes and the internet held out a last great hope. ........ Instead of love and affection, though, we found it all in cyberspace: Love, Hate and Indifference. .... It was just about 100 years ago that a Dokteur from Vienna offered up a fairy tale which he told one of his students -- tongue in cheek, maybe -- that he thought up on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ...... He thought that ages ago, people lived in Hordes that were dominated by a single male who held control over all the women while keeping the kids in check. One day, however, the kids, tired of being shoved about like pawns on a chessboard or prawn on a plate, rose up and killed and cannibalized Papa and created rituals to cover their deed. .... What the Good Dokteur never considered, however, was that what changed, perchance, was not predominantly the overthrow of Papa but the understanding of the power of grouping and subgrouping. ..... In any case, online groups may have all the stuff of these Primal Hordes. People gather and avow themselves of the comfort of subgrouping. It takes the form in cybergroups of flare-ups .... of subgroups gathering into units to make war on singleton others or on other subgroups.In one group I'm in, a fellow from Chicago has been identified as a right-wing-whack-job ... another as being inscrutable, that is, ununderstandable. A third was identified as hostile and driven out. All of these folk --Identified odd ones and Identifiers, alike are Players at least in the Last Half ... most in the Last Quarter. ...... ...... ..... In schools, this subgrouping seems to take the form of bullying, of choosing to excommunicate and torture or identify-as-odd-and-alien certain individuals (again, bullying) or subgroups. But Old Farts are not immune to the same torments and flare-ups, or at least, that's the way it seems to this Oldster ... at least, today. ......... BTW, I did go to hear that talk, yesterday, and my student present. I stayed for more than half and didn't leave till after lunch. Players in the Last Quarter may flare up like the rest of the folk but they rarely leave without eating lunch.

Disappointment

Many of the visitors who come to see me are dominated by disappointments in their lives. We members of Clan Anthropos can be disappointed in just about anybody ... Disappointed in our Parents for not being sufficiently kind or watchful or protective ... Children for not being stars every day or for reproducing our own historical way of doing housekeeping in their rooms .... Hey, just shut the door! .... Lovers for not being expressive enough in the bedroom or thankful enough or for showing their age. At kind moments, one lover says to another: 'you look just like you did 45 years ago.' What did Mama Cass say ... Dream a little dream for me. .... We get disappointed in things or body organs, too ... ...... Why doesn't that car start? It only has travelled the equivalent of 6 earthly circumnavigations! .... ..... Damn ... I was never allergic to gluten or dairy intolerant before! .... .... ..... ..... What is it, this feeling that we betimes show gesturally when someone says something that doesn't quite meet the highest possible standards that some voice in our head sets and then, essentially, demands of others. ..... ..... Players in Last Quarter experience disappointment ... Hell, I mean me .... I am experiencing disappointment, today. A favorite writer/thinker of mine is coming to town and a fine ex-student of mine will be speaking, too. The older guy wrote a favorite piece of mine that I read maybe 15years ago. It was a report of his reactions in the weeks after finding his wife of many years dead in their bed of cancer, I think, on an otherwise typical morning. He wrote so poignantly about his own feelings of being in a bubble, disconnected from others who were engaged in their own lives and, apparently, oblivious to the manner in which the world had changed, now that HIS wife had died. The Sadness. The Anger. ............. I had wanted to go to hear him speak ... It begins later this morning. I don't know if I can. Spent the night with a nasty Dyspepsia and Nausea that seems to be increasing over last few days. I think disappointment can be placed as counterpoise to many other human feelings but among them is gratitude. Can I hold on to a sense of gratitude even if I miss this meeting? .... I suppose, I'll see. .... I was planning to leave M off to visit our youngest grandchild ... Our 3.5 year old cherub, the adorable mascot offer much older cousins. They'll be disappointed, too, if M ends up staying home and taking care of the ailing residues of the First Quarter Player she married in 1965.

A Rose by Any Other Name

There are times that I get ... really tired ... plum tired ... fall-over tired .... "How am I gomnna be alert for my visitors today" tired. Have a meeting, tomorrow, in town. Oh! Downtown is 10 miles/half hour away ... close. An ex-student of mine will be among the presenters and I'm drawn to go .... I like the main speaker ... his writings and mine (tho we trained in different "theoretical churches") are in many ways similar. My son offered to put his Mom, the unsinkable M, and his Dad, in a lovely hotel. Had to say "no" ... I tend to be rather positive much of time ... but not when I get as the Brits put it ... fagged out. ... Tres fatigue .... like that tiredness that comes at the end of a long road trip ... cat-sounding yawns ... windows open ... cofe don't help tired. Maybe it's the Winter. I think Winter needs to be abbreviated in the Fourth Quarter. Like maybe Firt Quarter ... 20 minutes. Middle Quarters could stay at 15 but last Quarter could be 10 ... or maybe signing autographs. Lemme say it just once more and then I'll take some "puppy uppers" ... well, some vitamins, anyway ... My gas tank is on low, today. Could use some proxy energy, today.

BTW

That riff was on the heels of a day in which I thought about a word that was rarely, if ever, in my lexicon ... 'overwhelmed.' I know I had a dream last night ... don't recall it ... It was a good dream .... When I couldn't remember it, I thought of an Autumnal phrase from a religious liturgy that was describing life and ends, in it's language, v'cha'chalom ya'uf, as a dream flies away. A man named Levinson and his crew of researchers spoke of the need in the end of one's Second Quarter to reformulate the dreams of the First. Levinson et al stopped short of examining the needs of the Fourth Quarter. I need to think them through. Certainly, it's not winning the 10k or driving faster than anybody in an open cockpit rocket. It's not spending a whole night making wild and passionate love. ------ Anybody got any ideas? I'm collecting.

Enough, Already

There's an Eastern European tale about a Father with nagging children. He is told by his Mentoor/Master to start bringing home this animal and then that animal until the house is full. Indeed, the ids begin to say " Enough, Already." order is restored.----------- The Last Quarter sometimes feels "enough, already." Children have begun showing their vulnerabilities as they look towards 40 and 50. Spouse has the same needs you do. Friends nag that you don't give them enough, typically without asking if you have any more to give. Professional colleagues expect you to be able to do everything you did in the Third Quarter. Hell, I know of one 85 year old lawyer whose young lover got to get too needy. ----------- All this happens as our capacity to juggle is compromised by a weakening cognitive apparatus and memory. Keeping four balls or more in the air is a young person's game. And the number of gifts both required to give and to receive ... OMG .... The kids say. The kids want you to be forever young and forget that there are days when you're forever uncomfortable and in distress. -------- No wonder old people get cantankerous. ------ And all through this time, one's body is changing in shape and function that it has only done so dramatically before, during the years of pubic shock (early adolescence with it's unwieldy growth spurts) and pregnancy and it's dysmorphing processes that end with the symphonics of his/her majesty the baby (a doc from Vienna used that phrase in 1914, I think). -------- I'll keep this kvetch short ---- Enough, Already!

A Backside kinda Day

Old people like to Play even if it is in the Last Quarter. Well, there is a backstory ... Or, considering my yesterday maybe I should call it a 'backside story' .... It began when the mail and three of my grandkids came over at the same time. The 14 yo found a professional magazine in the mail and, as a writer, turned to the creative section which included a rather ribald and lengthy bit of 1994 doggerel that bore the name of her grandfather ... Not her other grandfather, the dignified Doc from Rhodesia but the Brooklyn Kid. She was shocked ... 'someone published this smut.' I began singing Tom Lehrer's 'Smut ... I want nothing but ... Smut' .... I was on a roll ... Then there was the same author getting in what So. African Jews call a feribble on line ... And folks from Appallachia call everyday battles between the Clampetts and the 'who was the family they were fightin' with' .... there was sniping between two typically quiescent Musers ... one of them, you guessed it ... Grandpa. So, Grandpa while he's makin' an omelet with onions and mushrooms, says to his-self ... 'Grandpa ... Why doesn't you send ya friends on line an invite to enjoin some days of the the Dear Lord's Sabbath from aggression' just like brother Cuckoo bird did in N. Korea ... at least according to Andy Borowitz's online piece in yesterday's New Yorker. ... and he did. But can you imagine if we ever instituted a day free of aggression online ... I explained the compatibility of this to my grandchildren with the span from Holy Friday to Easter Ascension Thursday. Anyhow ... Last night was a monthly meeting of a professional group ... Not the youngest reading group in the Resthome for Retired Healthcare Pro's, either and we were checking back over an old writing on Sadism and masochism and feelings of omnipotence. I can only say that I came back around 10 pm cowboying in the roadster like Bronco-Barry with a big smile on my face when my lady, M, right outa the blue says: OK, Howard ... What'd you do, tonight? Suffice it to say that somehow Goethe's comment was cited in German ... his Mach es kurz,am Jungsten Tag ist's nur eine ferze ... (make it snappy for on the Day of Judgement it's little more than a singular fart)was brought to describe the state in which a bunch of unassuming 'old farts' each thought it appropriate in their lives to have their names affixed to lengthy and complex writings in hardcover, at least once. New song .... Is it Waites or Cohen or Barry MacGuire .... Monday is a backside kinda day. Today is last Day of Passover, Remembering the Dead Service for Jews, and Easter Wednesday. "Shame on you, Grandpa!" and have a good day!