Everyone’s writing essays on aging. It’s tortuous. It’s like sitting on the front porch of the County Rest Home listening to geezer talk: My knee, my hip, my back. What? My knee, my hip, my back. What?
My essay on aging is about to go off the rails.
You want some advice on aging? It’s free. What on earth could be more annoying than unasked for free advice? Other than getting bitten by a small snake of unknown origin in your backyard garden. I don’t go outside anymore without wearing a pair of shitkickers. Remember those? And wait’ll you get that antivenom shot in the Emergency Room. It’s a doozy. But I digress.
Back to the free advice.
The advice is free, but there’s a price for aging. If you think you may have trouble paying the price – stop reading now! Or stop aging. Good luck. Many do. Or try. There are some spectacular failed lifts out there like face lifts, boob lifts and butt lifts. Not to mention the assorted spa treatments and masks that are now available (try and survive the Korean Face Mist) all guaranteed to stop ‘the effects of aging.’ But like a plunging elevator (which is a lot like an aging face) aging cannot be stopped. Or you can read on and learn more about ‘the effects of aging.’
Things like: Why does your underwear turn yellow. (Remember you’re in your Golden Years.) Fool!
Then you’ll hear a lot of this: Relax. Take a break. (From now until you die, I suppose.) You’ve earned it.
Like I said, there is a price for the privilege of aging. You have to listen to a desperate parade of people trying to ‘age gracefully’ talk out their ass. You must earn your age.
My take on age is – now I can be useless.
Jobs evaporate or implode. Chores become tasks. My neurologist says the vacuum frequency causes seizures. And yapping turns to napping. Hit the sack early. Sleep late into the morning.
Yeah, Yeah. So much for that shit. What I want to bring to your attention to is Adult CD.
Conversational Digression can be a serious condition. (But not in this case.)
Conversational Digression becomes commonplace as we age. I’ve seen the television commercials. I’ve seen the two commodified women, neighbors, in a suburban kitchen. One is a talking tornado (see mouthnado), the other is bored out of her fucking mind.
A ubiquitous announcer questions, “Do you have CD – Conversational Digression? Can you stay on topic? On course? Do you bore your friends shitless because only you know what you’re going to say next, and sometimes even you don’t know? You may have Conversational Digression. But there’s hope. No cure. Just hope…that you will eventually shut-up.
See what I’m talking about? I have it. The aging brain that suffers from CD loses control as The Conversationmobile makes a sudden unexpected left hand turn and the listener falls out the car.
CD. Conversational Digression. This piece was supposed to be about aging.
Well, writing’s different. I demand the right to digress. My alternate stories all point to the main thrust of each essay (whatever the topic may be).
I don’t write like a freight train.
I write more like a trolley. A horse drawn trolley at that. (Not the one in Disneyland: The Most Frightening Place on Earth. Year Round.) I’m not a good linear writer. “Round and round I go. Where I stop . . .” But I digress.
See, I take the reader on alternate side trips so they don’t wander away to something else. I digress to keep their limited attention, which can wane and sink like an old moon behind the horizon of interest if an essay or article goes on too long. (Like that sentence.) Like a movie where they missed the good ending and padded it until by the time the good ending arrives, no one gives a shit because no one’s in the theater anymore anyway.
Gotta keep them seated ’till the credits roll.
