I was thinking, earlier today, about the kind and genteel fashion in which we age. I don't think I look any different than I did ten years ago. My friends don't look any different than they did ten years ago; our hairstyles and a few pounds up or down not withstanding. But if it were possible to magically POP! into the ten-year-younger me and then go take a gander in the mirror?...well I'm sure I'd shit my pants and never stop screaming. But luckily one little wrinkle becomes two, the grey starts with a single hair, then multiplies slowly. You're really only ever one day older than you were yesterday. We are spared from waking up one morning with our tits at our belly buttons, our testicles are at our knees, all trapped inside a crumpled paper bag of a body that has to moan--Awwwah--every time it gets down into or up out of a chair. It happens nice and slow. So you don't shit your pants. Until you're really old and are shitting your pants, but by then it seems like you had been forever. Actually, if you look at it the right way, with the exception of those middle seventy or so years, you have.
Posted by Antigeist at October 12, 2005 01:11 PMgentile?
Posted by: anne at October 13, 2005 02:02 AMI think the threshold is when you start feeling younger. Because, if you think back, when you were younger, you speciialized in trying to feel older. Either way, as long as you aren"t getting it right, you're still . . . alive.
Posted by: Mortimer Shy at October 13, 2005 02:33 AMMortimer's ellipses are at his knees...
Posted by: monk at October 13, 2005 08:25 AManne--
oop! I was under the mistaken notion it was an alternative spelling for 'genteel'. French or whatever. However, you're right, the misspelling would make it seem like only Christians age kindly. Which, c'mon...you just have to take a peek at the Christian Coalition to know that ain't true. Moreover, what a thing to say on the first full day of Yom Kippur!
Mortimer--
I like the old adage: It's not how old you are, but how you are old.
Monk--I think very highly of our friend Mortimer. Always have. All good things from his head right to his waist, where--he being like family--I stop thinking about him at all.
So, you know, thanks for that.
Posted by: antigeist at October 13, 2005 10:27 AMI do not understand Monk's comment, but am afraid to ask for an explanation. What ellipses, wherefore his knees! (as Shakespeare said).
Posted by: Mortimer Shy at October 13, 2005 06:30 PMI don't understand it either...
Posted by: monk at October 14, 2005 12:07 PM