WHAT DOES DEATH TASTE LIKE?

image by jasongoad.deviantart.com

I wonder what death tastes like.  Does it taste like the blackened bits of carbon that burn forever on the sides of an iron pan?

Does death taste like brown and yellow agglutinated crap served cold?

Perhaps death tastes of the rotting, putrefying meat of dead animals slaughtered for food served steaming hot?

It is often said that the stench of burning human corpses is sickeningly sweet.  Perhaps death brings an overwhelming flavor of sweetness with it?  Burning corpses layered with fatty oils, burning, smoking greasily, filling the air the nose the lungs the tongue with a cloying odor of blackened leather?

Is death sweet? The aroma of almonds, dead and broken, cut in bloodless slices, layered with caramelized sugar; does death taste like that? Or sweeter still, like the honey of billions of dead flowers?

Or could it be, could it taste like bitter astringent pee? the pee on her labia, like a sharp spice around the honey within?

Oh. Back to her. Her, she, the one who makes me long for death.  Her of the twisted mind and tortured soul like me, the one I longed to be with for these wasted years?  What of her? She is life itself, and smiles and joy and soft flesh and music and reading and video and laughter and companionship.  And death. She is death for me. To long for her is to long for death. O, to taste her would be joy!  Joy denied. Love denied. Laughter denied. Companionship denied. The sweet look in her eyes.  The poetry of her hands moving about in space, the hands I long to touch, to caress, to feel warm in my hands…. (A Day Without You 2nd Phase) by Beloved Creature

But it is death!  It is death to touch her, to want the untouchable.  It is death to taste her, death to smell her honey, taste it on the end of my thrusting tongue probing her sweetness, stirring our flesh into spasms of delight and ever more desire, fevered heat on every part of our skin, and all is sensing and touching and smelling and tasting without thought.  And there is la petit mort also.

That is the death I would taste.

Hooray! Lizard shit!

Rat shit, bat shit, dirty old twat! 69 assholes tied in a knot! Hooray! Lizard shit! FUCK!

the world according to Kassandra Leigh Purcell

Good ol’ February 14

Another Valentine’s Day.  People make fun of the day, and criticize it as meaningless commercial promotion for the greeting card and candy companies.  I’ve often found, however, that when I’m in a serious relationship, it is satisfying to do something nice for your lover on a day that is dedicated to love. Once I didn’t, by mistake, actually.  I was one of those who felt that gifts or flowers as sentiment should come spontaneously and randomly, and I acted on that.  However, I knew, without a doubt, that my lover at the time would want to be treated special, so I had a plan. Since I rode a bicycle every day to and from work, it was difficult to range very far in getting flowers, which is what I thought most appropriate at that time.  And, of course, arranging to have them delivered never occurred to me. Every day, I passed a flower shop on the way home.  I had never had a real girlfriend or lover to buy flowers for before, and had no idea how early one has to buy these things.  However, the shop would certainly have had some kind of flowers left, even if they weren’t roses.  So, I left work, and headed home, climbing the slope of “nine-mile” hill steadily.  I reached the flower shop, and THEY WERE CLOSED! As in shut down and moved away. Crap.  I couldn’t believe it.  I knew of none other within miles, and I was expected at home anyway.  I went home, and promptly told my love what had happened, and she said it was OK, and no big deal.  DON”T EVER BELIEVE THAT.  It is just not true.  Later, after she’d left me for someone else, and we’d become friends again, years later, she told me that’s when she changed her mind about me. She was actually pretty upset.  She met this guy coincidentally the next day, and she became interested in  him.  

Be that all as it may be, however, I’ve been with many women since then, and I never screwed up like that again, always giving flowers and treats, and not because I had to, but because I wanted to.  So, I like Valentine’s Day.  However, since that last divorce and my subsequent unrequited love infatuation and rejection, I don’t think much of this approaching day of love.  It sucks, really.   I added a note to myself on my appointments calendar for the 14th: Kill myself.  Now, it’s unlikely I will.  For one thing, I’ve gotten really interested in learning guitar, and I practice every day.  I understand a little bit of the nomenclature, and I’m training my fingers, and making slow progress.  It may take a long time, but I think I can do it.  So, since I want to see how well I can do, I should stick around a bit longer.

Before this, I joined the Mountain Club, however.  I went on four hikes, up and down hilly terrain, for lengths of  8 to ten miles, and enjoyed it.  Loved the slowly increasing strength and stamina, but I haven’t been hiking since January 1.  I used to go hiking on level ground about 4 miles every Sunday before going mountaineering, but I haven’t even done that.  Now I’m focused on guitar.  I wonder if I can keep my interest in that?  Or will I lose the excitement that grips me now?  If I do, will I decide there’s no further reason to keep on living? or will I find another item on my bucket list to throw myself into?  I can’t predict, just can’t tell.

Where would I go now?

I watch so many, many movies these days.  The TV is useless for much of anything else.  I don’t know what I see in the movies.  I like to escape, of course, but that is less appealing than it used to be.  There are so many stories to see, ideas to hear, intrigues, and mysteries, and wonder. Still, I find it hard to sit still for movies anymore.  I wander off and read, or check my email or auctions or Word Press stats, or play solitaire, and watch some more.  It’s not so much the movies themselves, but that I am restless again, as restless as I was in 1973 and 1975 when I rode away from jobs and family and stability.  I rode away the first time, but came back and tried again.  In 1975 I rode away for good.

Movies seem to have relevance sometimes, but I am tired of extrapolating them into the myriad ways that they reflect my own life, or comment on it, or condemn it.  They’re not as much fun as they used to be for me.  Neither is my job, and my life, which once had purpose.  It’s time to return to the carnival.  We, most of us, speak of running away to join the circus, and that’s what I did so many years ago, although it turned out to be a carnival: no animals, well, live ones anyway.  There were always the two-headed goats and five-legged cows, but they were actually in jars of formaldehyde, which you would only find out after you paid your money to see ‘em.  The marks always lined up to see those kind of things, and the painted signs outside always made it seem like the animals were real, and just inside.  But, a carnival doesn’t put on animal shows, just people shows.  Mostly it’s all “punk” kiddie rides and ferris wheels, and all  the other mechanized thrill rides, with music blaring from giant speakers.  No big top, no tents really.  Lots of trucks, motor homes, and trailers.  And electrical generators, of course. Need power for all that stuff.  All those lights.  All those popcorn “poppers” and games-of-chance “joints”.  Try your luck, but you’re really buying cheap fluff.  Hotdogs and ice cream and sodas. Eat and spend. Eat and spend.  The real American dream.  Carnies epitomize our values – buy low, sell high. Maximize profits. The ideal is to get the most for the absolute least you must provide in return.  Provide thrills and escapism; promote gluttony for empty calories.  Cheap thrills.

When I left the carnival, I realized that much of the world around me was the same, even Universities.  It’s all sleight of hand, and manipulation, and cheap thrills.  Education, sure, it’s important, but secondary to research grants that pay the bills.  Stationary carnivals.  My brain is tired from trying to keep it straight.

I went back to work, and finished college.  I pay my bills, I eat a lot.  I watch movies. I marry and divorce and marry and divorce again, and buy and spend and work and buy and spend.  Cheap thrills.  I am viewed as more respectable than a carny, but the differences are slight.  Some towns only sit in one place, some move around, but we stay the same either way.

I can’t imagine I’d really want to work a carnival again.  But, traveling is always good.  Hiking? Bicycling? The physical activity is liberating.   As you put distance behind you, it feels like a new world, a new beginning, and you can’t go back.  All that walking or biking would be a waste if you went back.  But, one doesn’t have to travel in the opposite direction to go back.  I went back, but I live 1675 miles away from where I grew up.   Where would I go away to now? 

raison d’etre – 1:11:11

Time to ramble again.  I have a glass of wine in hand, a white wine from the New Mexican winery San Felipe, that they call Moscato.  Sweet, but not as much as a muscat. I sound like such a wine snob.  Ha!  I just shared my life with a wino for 14 years.  After a hundred wine tastings, visits to California wine country, and traveling to every winery in New Mexico, I absorbed some of the lore.

Tonight I’ve been watching the 1979 movie, Being There, with Peters Sellers and Shirley MacLaine, and really enjoying it.  I paused the movie to write this.  The readout is 1:11:11.  As with most movies, I only enjoy them if I put myself into the movie, and, much like a medical or psychology student studying disease, I imagine what I watch to apply to myself.  The child-like gardener that Peter Sellers plays is easy to empathize with. He only knows how to do one thing, but somehow people imagine that he knows much more.  Because of the way he’s dressed, and misinterpretations of his description of his life, he is taken to be more educated and intelligent than he really is. That’s where my imagination comes in.  I am him, and imagine that I’ve always been this way.  As far as imitating what I’ve read and watched and people I’ve known, I am.  I also question if I am who people think I am.  I say I work with DNA, which seems to impress people, but I backed into the position, working my way from lab work on rats and mice, to a research position extracting immunoglobulins from the glands of mice and purifying them, to working with proteins.  I learned how to operate simple machines that can uncover the amino acid sequence of proteins, or take amino acids and assemble then into a protein.  The machines simply take known science, and using valves and solenoids, deliver reagents in standard formulas with standard protocols.  From there I learned to do almost the exact same thing with DNA, using very similar machines. At first I was not paid very well, but these days I make about half of what some of the better-paid professors make.  I always live in dread that people will find me out – realize that I don’t really understand much of what I’m doing.

I’ve always wanted to be a scientist, but never could get through all the classes.  I understood basic chemistry, physics, and math in high school, but college was another story.  Laboratories were always fun, but genetics lectures, calculus, and physical chemistry bewildered me.  Oh, I understood the lectures well enough, but I could never remember all the formulas, equations and pathways, and did miserably on tests.  I persevered for a long time, finally passing several classes in calculus, basic genetics, basic physics, organic chemistry, and basic biochemistry, but even though I understood the purpose and usefulness of integrals and derivatives, and stoichiometry, the biology of cells, and vector analyses well enough, I can’t remember how to use them anymore.   I can balance simple chemical equations, and my high school algebra never leaves me, but my understanding of the science of DNA is so rudimentary.

Just like the gardener, I stumble through life, getting credit for knowing far more than I know.  What’s worse, it’s all falling away from me now as I age.  I can barely type anymore, as I invert so many letters and words, even adding extra words, or leaving some out.  Without editing, I hardly make sense.  Without computers, I’d have failed to get through many of my final classes, and it’s much worse now.  I just make too many mistakes, and don’t control my fingers all that well. The brain feels tired now.  I have been playing chess, and doing OK, but only against a novice player.   I don’t know how much longer I can continue to pretend that I have a clue what’s going on, or can concentrate long enough to do a job.  I’d like to retire from life now.  It’s been fun, but, really, it’s all a bit too much for me.  People, and money, and relationships and reading and writing.  I want to withdraw.  I don’t want to be here anymore.  But I stay.  I work every day.  I talk to people.  I go to political rallies.  I play chess.  I still exist.  Existence is not a sufficient raison d’etre.  But, then again, why should I care about the reason for my continued being? Why does it matter to me?  I think we all need a plan, something to shoot for.  What is left me at this stage of life?  Yes, yes, whatever I want.  But, I seem to want less and less.  To be a child again.  That would be nice. To play, to move from one thing to the next, to have no place to be, nothing I must do. Being here.

Surely, we all can’t be simply dragging ourselves along this way, simply to drag ourselves along?

Letter to the Governor and the general public about life at UNM

April 28, 2008

I see where things are going, and I’m not real happy about it, but they’re going to go where they go. I’m right in the middle of negotiations with my union local and the University. We’re not a typical sort of trade union; hell, most jobs in the USA aren’t trades anymore. Most jobs are turning into service jobs of one kind or another. A lot of our people are administrative assistants, (which is the new title for secretaries everywhere), or advisers or other desk jockeys. We live and work in a college town with a military base and a weapons lab and a big University. Even Enron has a chip plant nearby. The Sandia (Watermelon) and Manzano (Apple) Mountains are full of nuclear missiles. The anti-war people keep trying to get the city council to force the government to admit that the missiles are there, and that they are a target and hazard that we should be prepared for. There is the hope that we can get rid of those someday.

Our local is at the University.  Education is our mission, and every department has a mission statement, just like the corporations and their imitators all over the country. Useless things, mission statements. Hardly anyone reads ‘em, and they don’t reflect anything except the way the grossly overpaid administrators felt the day of the retreat when they wrote ‘em.

We do our jobs. We put up with asinine supervisors and managers who have or are working on their business degrees, and hope to make something more of themselves. They squeeze staff, push ‘em around, and then move on to their next position, a step up somewhere, with a fuller resume, and a recommendation or two. We remain here, and try to keep our jobs. Myself, I work in a DNA research lab, mostly running robot-like machines that manipulate DNA. It’s a living. I’m the President of the local, for the last four years, and I’m really tired of negotiations. We’ve done well for the staff here. We have to lobby the State every year for our raises, insurance and health benefits, because they control the purse strings. Negotiations are entirely dependent on what was appropriated before we even set negotiation ground rules, but we go through the motions anyway. We dick around with the contract every year, trying to improve on protections for staff, and make management more accountable. Sometimes we win a little, sometimes it’s a draw. But, every year the contract gets a little better, and we lose more members.

Everyone we represent by law isn’t a member, and they don’t have to be, to be protected by the contract or get the raise we negotiate. In fact, it’s rare that there’s much difference between the benefits of being a dues-paying member and a free rider. Usually, for staff we cover, it’s a clean shot at a certain raise percentage, while people outside of our representation get whatever their supervisors decide out of what funds are available, which can vary quite a bit.

So, one of our members has a problem with the way she was treated. She was getting pushed around and we fought back. She got the promotion she deserved, but a lousy performance review. These reviews don’t mean a whole lot, but it bothers people because they worry about the reviews being used against them. In this member’s case, she is being retaliated against for fighting for herself. She didn’t like her review, but we can respond to ratings and comments with our own comments before signing the damn things. I told her to go ahead and sign hers, and make all the comments she wanted. Her bosses sent the thing to the personnel department, excuse me, Human Resources department, and they sent it back because it was incomplete.

This is damn boring stuff, ain’t it?

Anywho, once it came back, the review was changed, comments were added, and then it was sent back to be put in her permanent record, and all of this after it had already been signed. Illegal, and even against University policy. Human Resources did nothing, and just assumed that the correct version is in this woman’s file, even though she told them it wasn’t. It seems a small matter. However, a contract is a contract, and just as our union contract has the force of law behind it, so does any other contract made in this country, or at least it used to. When you sign a document, it doesn’t get changed afterwards, or it’s no longer an accurate or legal document. Everything is on our side in this. Today, a group of three union officers went to HR to see the personnel files and were refused. HR has a 24-hour rule about access, and they didn’t know that, so they were pissed off. So far, they are no repercussions to the small-scale confrontation, but, like I said earlier, I have a bad sense about where this is going. We have already made it clear this could be a legal matter. The union officers, who are also the negotiating team, are pissed off, and HR is wanting to meet. Meanwhile we have to meet the same people in negotiations in a couple more days.

I’m so tired of all this. Important rights are at stake, but someone is going to lose a job here, maybe even me. I’m so tired of my job, and I seem to have few reasons to even stay around here. I wanted to retire in a few years, and try writing, or part-time work at least. Getting divorced took away my chance at retirement. It wasn’t my idea, but my ex got the house. I get to keep my retirement income if I ever retire, but it won’t be enough to buy a house, and I’m too old to take out a long-term mortgage anyway. My retirement income won’t even be enough to afford a nice place to live, so at the moment, I have no idea what kind of future to look for.

It’s so easy to push people around, even at what the right-wing nuts like to call a liberal university. There are good people here, and good ideas, but the place is being run as a business, and the management of the University see our union as an outside business muscling in on their territory. There is certainly a territorial fight over turf involved in negotiations every year. We feel like we win a little, but then we hear of managers pushing people around, telling them to quit if they don’t like it, and getting rid of people who actually understand how the ever-changing rules and regulations work. We have a new financial system that took years to put into place and tweak, and it forces people to conform to it, instead of being just a useful tool. The bureaucratic mind loves it, since they expect everything to fit under its umbrella, but there’s always something we can’t do, or must do because of the accounting software structure. Most of the admin assistants have been turned into part-time accountants, and are given purchasing cards that spell the end of their jobs if lost or not properly accounted for, even if no wrong doing occurs. It’s a funny place.

Our Governor gets to appoint the Regents, a medieval nomenclature for the political appointees who run this place. He ran for President of the United States. He knows a lot about international politics and is a skilled negotiator, but, really, he does not know what goes on at this university, except that tuition for students has to keep going up.

03/13/09 UPDATE: UNM’s faculty voted no confidence in UNM President Schmidly, Executive Vice President David Harris, and President of the Board of Regents Jamie Koch.  We’re still waiting to see what happens, as a new audit was also requested, but Governor Richardson visited campus and met with faculty.  Shortly afterwards, Jamie Koch stepped down as President of the Board.    Our Legislature is still in session, so we have yet to see if they will confirm Koch’s seat on the Board.  They still need to confirm the new President of the Board.  Meanwhile, the Board of Regents can’t meet, and UNM seems no worse for that.  Harris needs to go too.

Motorcycles and Old Trucks Are Like Cream and Sugar

I ride my bike to work every day, or, I should say, I used to ride it every day until it wouldn’t start anymore. I jumped it from a car battery – wouldn’t turn over. I checked fuses, charged the battery, checked the fuel line, and the spark plugs. Everything seems good, but it won’t start; it just grinds and wears the battery down, even the jumper battery. I replaced the starter solenoid – no luck. I jumped the solenoid across the terminals and the bike still just grinds, over and over, but real fast. Now it seems the starter button is dead too. I finally give up. I decide to take it to the best repairman in town. I have to schedule an appointment, and they squeeze me in as a favor, since I want to ride in the Ride for Kids that benefits pediatric brain tumor research and treatment and provides scholarships for the kids too. My step daughter went with me last year, and after all she went through with her brain tumor, I really look forward to her company.

I called to verify my appointment, but before I did, I had to make sure I’d have a truck to use. My friend Mark always has his good old Dodge, and after helping him build his house, he always lets me borrow it anytime I need it. He’s like that anyway. He’d lend anyone anything, even money, although his newest wife ameliorates that a bit, I think. I called him, and left a message on his cell phone, and I wasn’t expecting a quick reply, as he’s often busy or traveling. Amazingly, he called back in 20 minutes or so, from his plane. He had just turned his phone back on and got my message. Good timing. He was off to speak somewhere. I told him what I needed, and he apologized for being out of town, and that the truck was not available – it was at the airport. I was prepared to go get it, pay for it, and put it back before he returned, but he said, “But! There is another option!” (He often speaks in exclamation points, and loudly, as he is hard of hearing these days.) He said he had just bought another old truck, a ‘59 Ford. It was in the field behind his house. “It’s a little tricky,” he said. I might have to spray the carburetor in order to get it to start. He had a can of spray on the seat, and the key was in the ignition.

So, OK. I come home, eat, and head over to his place. I leave my car inside his yard, and head for the field. It has been raining. The field is muddy. I traipse though the mud. I close the tailgate, noting that the bed is outlined in leftover manure, so I know what he uses it for. It doesn’t start right off. I spray into the air intake, several short bursts, as it says on the can. I try again – it fires right up! It is a very old looking, beat-up truck. However, it has all its windows, and they aren’t even cracked, which is damn good, because I can’t get stopped for anything, as the truck isn’t registered yet. The seat is high. It is narrower than the original, and welded in place in the center of the floor, so I can’t move it up, and it’s a little short on the ends. It reminds me a lot of the ‘51 Dodge-post-office-parcel-post truck I used to drive. This one has four speeds instead of three, but in the darkness I can’t tell. The lights come on, but go off if I turn the knob too far. I don’t have instrument lights, which is why I can’t tell right off how many gears the truck has. I think it has four gears, but I can’t find fourth. I put in the gear where first was in my ‘51, and head out, shifting into what I think are second and third. At the first stop the engine revs really high. I hit the gas and it dies. I spray the intake again, and it restarts. Off I go down the road. Playing with the light switch, I notice that I can get the instrument lights on, but it’s a delicate balance between having all lights, having only headlights, or having only instrument lights.

At every stop the engine races like the timing must be way the hell up, or the carburetor wildly adjusted to keep it running. It takes a while to understand what’s going on. I finally get a rhythm going for stopping: push the clutch in, and tap the gas before braking. I make it home in one piece, without the engine dying again.

In the morning I move the truck around (after spraying the air intake) and lay a board from a small grassy hillock onto the bed. The bike is heavy, and simply pushing it up a ramp isn’t going to be easy. I notice that I have put the truck in second gear, where I thought first was. It is the simple H pattern, but my tired brain and bad memory forgot all about that. I think it starts alright in second because it revs so fast. I push the bike up onto the grass and run towards the truck, but a neighbor stops to help and we push it on fairly easily. I’m wired on coffee, because I thought it would be a major effort by myself. I tie the bike down, noticing, in the light of day, all the colors. One door is a turquoise green, a fender is pink. The roof of the cab is painted white with black, zebra-like stripes. The rest of the truck is a faded pale blue, where it isn’t rusted through. The moistened manure smells really fine. I’m surprised my neighbors didn’t torch it the minute they saw it in the parking lot.

The truck fires right up this time and runs much the same, except after a few miles there is a popping noise from the accelerator, and it is suddenly unstuck, and I don’t have to hit it anymore to get it unstuck. Linkage? Anyway, it runs fine, but I try not to stop with the bike in the back. When I see the sign for the motorcycle shop, it is beautiful. I have never been so happy to arrive there. it takes three of us to get the bike down, and I abandon it there. Carl, the best bike mechanic in the world, chats a bit. I tell him how I am hoping to take my step daughter on the ride in ten days, and how happy I am that she is healthy again. Carl tells me about his wife Teresa, who had three surgeries on her ovaries, and how one operation left her bleeding internally, but she is much better now. His mother has also been operated on, and had her hips replaced. It is early in the shop. No one else has come in yet, and he is relaxed and calm. Later, people will be lined up, and the phone will not stop ringing all day. It rings now once, and he picks it up, but it is a fax coming in. I tell him how busy I am these days, with little time to work on the bike, and he tells me how busy his life is. He is in his church choir, and also plays drums for the church’s band, so he is often practicing. My step-daughter is in a similar sort of church herself. I am not religious, thank god.

A couple men show up outside the door, so I head out. I notice the CD on the truck seat. It is my Honda Magna 1993-1997 manual. I run it back inside to give to Carl, but he has already gone back into the shop. The men are explaining what they need to Carl’s substitute helper. I don’t know her, but with Teresa out, someone has to be up front to order parts and help customers. I hear her tell them that the earliest possible day she can fit them in is a month and ten days away! I am a very, very lucky man.

What kind of life would I have without motorcycles and old trucks?  It would be like drinking black coffee all the time just for the caffeine, without enjoying the drink.

Keratoses & Barnacles & Young Pretty Doctors

Actually, to be specific, Seborrheic Keratoses (seb-o-REE-ick Ker-ah-TOE-sees).

I found this thing on my ass, of all places. It was a mostly round, raised area, with a brown circle, almost like a cell nucleus off to one side, and the rest was red. I went to see a doctor over a month ago, and got referred to a dermatologist. The doc said it wasn’t cancer, so I guess that’s why there was no big rush. Of course, it’s also because the University is trying out this new managed care thing, and rather than have an employee stop by the employee health clinic and get seen right away, I guess it’s better to make appointments, and wait for those to come around, if I can remember to even go. But, I’m straying from the story here.

So the dermatologist, over a month later, takes a look at it, and she says right off what it is. I’ve got a nice pamphlet explaining it all. So, nobody really knows why these things occur, but they’re not cancerous, and they’re not from sun exposure. That is pretty obvious, especially if you saw how white my ass is. I’ve never had sun shining on that part of my anatomy for very long. Here’s the salient point from the brochure: “…almost everybody will eventually develop at least of few of these growths. They are sometimes referred to as barnacles of old age.” How nice. “They become more common and more numerous with advancing age,” which is what my doc kept trying to say, without ever mentioning age. She referred to it “when as we get wiser” and things like that, trying to be funny, I guess. I said, “You mean, as we get older and fatter?” She didn’t want to agree with that.

Anyway, my barnacle is irritated, probably by having my jeans rubbing against it all the time. Even though it isn’t dangerous to have one, these barnacles can itch or bleed, so they are often removed (among those of us with health insurance). Liquid nitrogen to the rescue! So I ended up having my ass frozen by Dr. Kim, a pretty young doctor. Not so bad.

Meanwhile, there are also actinic keratoses. The first doctor I went to noticed them on my forehead. They are little tiny hard bumps; they feel like a piece of sand glued to my forehead, and I’m always scratching them off. These I hadn’t given much thought to. I had felt them on my scalp before, and asked another doctor about them, but he tried to tell me they were just sand, and only after bugging him about it did he finally admit they were probably keratoses, which can be pre-cancerous. He dismissed it as insignificant and harmless, so I never worried about it. Hey, I’m getting old anyway, so who cares? Long story short, these are also called solar keratoses, because they are found on fair-skinned people who have had significant sun exposure; they are considered the earliest stage in the development of skin cancer (10% do become actual cancers.   How nice.

Again, treatment #1 is freeze ‘em right off with liquid nitrogen. That was more fun. However, it’s likely I have more, and will continue to develop more around my forehead and slowly receding hairline, so rather than make regular trips to have my face and scalp spot-frozen the rest of my life (the doc gives me another 30 years), there are other methods. One is a topical chemotherapy lotion that really reddens the skin for awhile ( that’ll look really nice all over my forehead), and the other is another cream that promotes an immune-type of response (also possibly creating red blotches all over my forehead) for a much longer time. I have a prescription for that, so once these frozen ones fall off, I will start using that. After three months: fours weeks of treatment, four none, four treatment, I should be through with these little things.  The odd thing: the cream, Aldara, is also used for genital warts and actual skin cancers (basal cell carcinomas).  In my incarnation as a cancer lab worker, I used to give skin cancer to rats, then treat them with combinations of drugs and radiation, before those treatments were tried on terminal cancer patients.  Then I had to dissect them – skin cancer will eventually invade the entire body, organs, lungs, brains – not a pretty sight.

And, the moral of this story? Use sunscreen, especially when you’re young. The doc, the young pretty one, said I probably got these started when I was 18 or so. Actually, it was riding a bicycle around the country a few times in my 20s, but close enough. Never wore a hat much, and certainly never used sunscreen. Of course, my parents took us to the beach every summer as kids, and we always got sunburned, every single time. It wasn’t ’till I lived in Arizona for awhile, after bicycling in from the East Coast, and working outdoors there, that I ever had a sustainable tan of any kind. I told Dr. Kim that it was great: I was tanned and muscled for the first time in my life. She thought that was pretty funny, or wanted to me to think I was funny.

“Who’s that knocking on my door?” said the fair Young Maiden….”

Just call me Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

You should listen to or read the bawdy lyrics for Barnacle Bill the Sailor sometime.

You won’t believe it! (Barnacle Bill the Sailor song lyrics)

A much tamer version: Betty Boop Cartoon

UPDATE: 4/30/08. I’ve started treatment for the actinic keratoses. Weird!  The first morning after treatment I could see more of the little bumps under the skin, and they stay visible.  No reddening of the skin yet.  I did wake up with acid reflux.  Felt like acid in my throat.  Later on, I felt so tired I was like the walking dead.   Drank an extra coffee to get me through the day.  I was unusually talkative, and even more unrestrained in what I said to people than usual.  Suddenly, about 9pm last night, I felt like I woke up.  My mind was clear, and I felt happy.  I even smiled, for no reason at all.  Odd.

UPDATE: 08/14/08. Finished treatment last month, but one area still itches.  Every place I saw raised bumps and scabs that itched like crazy during treatment, but only that one area still itches every day.  Odd.  I learned that 10% of all actininc keratoses become skin cancer, so I do wonder.

Why is it?

Why is it that wrapping a long cord around something is extremely satisfying? Like an electrical cord around a power tool or vacuum cleaner? You wrap it in neat circles around and around, so it’ll stay together and unwrap easily. But, it irritates you when you want to use it and you have to just as slowly unwrap it? Seems to take forever. Why is that?

Why is it that you’ll clean up your car or bike thoroughly once in while, vacuuming, wiping, washing, polishing, but, not other things you use just as much? Like the toilet, the bedroom, the garage, the den? Why is that?

Why is it that your house has no odor until company is coming? Then you smell something rotten, something fishy, sour milk and dirty socks? Why is that?

Why is it that you remember to watch the lunar eclipse, and when you go out the moon is covered by storm clouds and you can’t see squat? Why is that?

Why is it, that, needing a new VCR, and debating the relative merits and popularity of Blu-ray over High Def -DVD, you buy the cheaper Panasonic HD-DVD player that plays every CD & DVD format in the world, except Blu-ray, but Panasonic drops the entire technology a couple months later, leaving the foreseeable future solely to Sony’s Blu-ray? Why is that?

Why is it that, early in every political race, the one candidate, out of a huge field of candidates, that you really like, who makes the most sense, who seems the most trustworthy, intelligent and visionary, is never one of the the two left to duke it out? Why do we always have to choose the lesser of two evils? What’s that all about?

Why do people make lists like this? Why is that?

Coffee, tea, coke or Nana?

I LIKE TO DRINK

coffee in the morning (Costa Rican)

Good to the last drop

black tea at night (Lipton)

made from tiny little tea leaves
needs sugar
(Hawaiian)

raw sugar is da best.

But, I like cow milk too  (2%)
in the afternoon
or a tall glass
of strong ginger beer

birch beer too (Native American drinks).

Now, whiskey is OK,

(Jameson’s 1780)

but
nothing beats a Coca Cola
hecho en Mexico
(caña de azúcar).

I like the way
it dissolves my teeth
removes stains
or cleans the toilet bowl
Now, that’s good stuff.

© O’Maolchathaigh 2008

Now for something really cool, listen to and watch Nana Mouskouri sing a blues classic: Black Coffee
Oh, yeah.

Coffee Trash

OK, I’ll admit that I like coffee. No, this isn’t the first line of my therapy. I just like coffee. I like it leaded or unleaded, with caffeine or without. I enjoy drinking it. I like the flavor and mix of roasted bean extract flavored with raw sugar crystals and cow juice. I have access to an espresso cart at work, and I have developed an appreciation for espresso, but a single or even a double shot doesn’t give me much to sip on. I like Americano coffees. Hot water and two shots of espresso at work jump starts my day. On Sunday mornings I amble across the street to the Flying Star. It serves great coffee – far better than Starbucks, or any fast food restaurant or gas station convenience store. I have a favorite now; I order an Americano with four shots of espresso. The funny thing about espresso is that it doesn’t have the jolt of caffeine you’d expect, nor the bitterness of brewed coffee. It actually tastes good. So, to paraphrase a song lyric: my mind begins to wonder. I walk through Flying Star’s little parking lot every Sunday morning, and what do I always see but empty take out coffee cups. Not strange, you say? People are pigs, you say? Well, amazed to discover: the discarded coffee cups are not from Flying Star! Most are from Starbucks, with their characteristic green logo, some are from 7-Eleven, and some from Circle- K. It boggles my mind. There are no other coffee shops of any kind within miles. People have to have brought these cups with them on their way to Flying Star. Now that raises a lot of questions in my trivia-obsessed brain.

Do people need a coffee with them in order to drive to Flying Star? If they like Flying Star coffee, why buy coffee elsewhere before they get there? Are people that addicted to the caffeine that they have to buy one on the road on their way to a cafe? Why drop the cups in the parking lot? If they are going in to the Flying Star Cafe, why not dispose of the empties there, or just outside the door in the highly visible trash can? Why drop these cups in the parking lot at all? It’s a mystery to me. Flying Star coffee is highly rated around town, so I can’t understand why people are drinking coffee elsewhere, and then coming to this Cafe? Why would people drop their cups in the parking lot anyway?

The only thing I can come up with is that these are smokers, or former smokers, or that they have tapped into that same mentality. Smokers used to drop matches and butts everywhere, higgedly-piggedly, although I rarely see a used match anymore. Occasionally I’ll see a discarded, far more ubiquitous disposable lighter. One of the problems associated with smokers is that they simply drop their spent butts wherever they happen to be, sometimes putting them out, sometimes not. If a building policy forbids smoking inside, then piles of tobacco droppings are certain to be found spread around the door like guano. Smokers seem to have adopted the crime mentality that permeates many people’s brains; it is the mentality of the law-abiding citizen who breaks a law or moral code, and comes to accept the label of criminal. Once you’re a criminal already, then why care about anything? How else to explain the careless way smokers throw matches, cigarette butts, and cigar butts out of car windows, over their shoulder, on simply down at their feet? It is the behaviour of brain-addled addicts, to be sure, but addicts who have no sense of social responsibility. Enter our new, more socially-acceptable addiction: coffee. Along with the habit comes the old habits: toss, drop, ignore.

Cigarette butts were bad enough. Now it’s styrofoam cups littering the sidewalks, and all the parking lots of our schools and workplaces. It is a shameful product of minds that cannot accept responsibility for their own actions; that cannot see their actions as bad. I imagine the attitude is, “It’s not my driveway, my house, my sidewalk, so why should it matter?”

Why have we become such trashy people? Is it simply another sign of civilization in decline? The attitude used to be: “Out of sight, out of mind.” It gave us leave to dispose of things we called trash, even people, because we didn’t see it anymore. Now, we have, “Out of mind, out of sight.” If we don’t mind, it don’t matter. How long before nothing matters anymore? Sad.

Who does Santa support for President?

Oh, you’re looking for another celebrity endorsement, are you? Well, you won’t get one here. I will tell you this: Santa is a man of peace, and not peace when it’s convenient or politically correct, but now. Those of you fighting in Iraq, and Santa knows exactly who you are after all, need to get out of there. Santa does not endorse any of your gods either. Get out. get out now. You say you still want to know who should take over as President of the United States? I haven’t seen much good will coming from Republicans or Democrats, and not much effort has been made by any of these politicians to seriously end this war. Now they are even preparing for another war, even while occupying two countries. No, my friends, it is not for Santa to say who US citizens should vote for in their Presidential circus. That said, however, I think you should all search your hearts and vote for whoever you think will end this mess quickly and bring all of your loved ones home quickest. That’s all Santa has to say on this subject.

Are old women sexually attractive?

In response to one of my posts on another blog, I got this email (excerpted):

>>> Why aren’t you attracted to women closer to your own age? For that matter why can’t most middle-aged men appreciate women of a certain age? I’m in my mid-thirties and it really gets on my nerves when I’ve been hit on by men in their 70’s. After this happened a few times I began to wonder if I looked old or something. It’s not flattering to be hit on by someone old enough to be your father, trust me. It makes you wonder what is wrong with the guy and whether he has some issues about control and/or power. …it’s no fun being a woman and getting unwanted male attention. … OK, I guess I feel pretty sensitive about the whole age thing. … And hey, why not try to meet some women your own age?<<<

I’ve been giving the second part of your message some thought. I’m attracted to women my own age, for friendship. Sexually, I never stopped being turned on by my ex, even as her jowls increased, her weight increased, her hands turned old & leathery looking, and she had to regularly dye her hair. Every look at her bare skin or touch of her body was enough to arouse me. I’m still attracted to her. However, being attracted sexually to other old-looking women is difficult. For one, in my experience, women lose interest in sex as they get old, especially during and after menopause. Men never lose interest their entire lives, and can in fact father children their entire lives. Since it is rare for an old woman to conceive, I suspect men have always looked to younger women for sex. I’ve heard that some older women enjoy sex, but I’ve yet to meet one, so why would I expect to have good sex with a woman who no longer enjoys it, and/or who only has it for their spouse’s sake? I love cuddling, holding hands, snuggling during movies and in bed, but that is not enough. I believe the answer to your question is simply, sex. Men are conditioned, perhaps also inherently through biology, to seek out young women for procreation. This is not to say that a man can’t continue to have a great sexual relationship with his spouse when they get old, but a single man? or a married man that is not getting sex and/or passion? Of course men will hit on women of any age that appear sexually attractive. IMHO. Now, Bea Arthur is attractive. She seems to be very spirited, intelligent, and fun to be around. I might date her.

This woman is definitely sexually attractive (at age 52):

This a a good resource on sexual arousal of older people: http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/wha/wha_agevs_crs.htm

Men are almost universally attracted to women of all ages, and I can’t see that changing. For friendship, it doesn’t matter. If an older woman, who is not interested in sex, wants to live with or be married to a man, then she must let him seek out other women for sex, not insist that he be “faithful”, whatever the hell that means. Just because a man loves a woman, that doesn’t mean he only wants sex with her. Usually it’s true, a man wants sex with his partner, and that’s usually enough, but when a woman doesn’t enjoy sex, or rejects it of hand, why the hell would they object to a man having sex with another woman, regardless of age? I think the same holds true for women: if they want sex, and their spouse/significant other doesn’t, then they should have sex with other men, and there should be no jealousy, nor any change in living arrangements. Maybe old women who don’t enjoy sex should just live with each other.

>>> I know you’re being honest and frankly, it scares me. Getting old for a woman isn’t the same as for a man. It’s like, we can’t all be Demi Moore and look fabulous. I am friends with a couple of women in their mid-to-late forties and I think they are drinking themselves to death because of their loneliness (much like the woman you ran into while you were walking in the ditch). I hope you can see a woman’s point-of-view on this one. Men are often guaranteed a lifetime of love and companionship.<<<

-

No one is asking women to look like Demi Moore. Well, of course, I can understand why you’d feel that way somewhat. What I don’t understand is why older women can’t be happy with their friends? Why are they lonely? Why does a woman need a man? If she wants sex, then I can see it. But if a woman has already had lovers, husbands, children, and isn’t interested in sex anymore, why would she need to have another man, and only a man, just for companionship? I don’t understand that. Children tend to stay in touch, visit, and be around their mothers all their lives, so it seems that women are usually guaranteed a lifetime of love and men are the ones that aren’t. I doubt seriously that men in general are guaranteed any love or companionship for life. The ones that do have it have had to go out and actively seek it out, perhaps again and again, and it’s a crapshoot. Additionally, just because a man is with a woman, that doesn’t mean he’s getting love or companionship. I do know about that. Men do not seek out young women for looks so much as for the sex. Are you saying that women in their 50s and 60s look for men for sex? or they can’t imagine the “disgrace” of only living with other women? If a woman is fun to be around, and there’s some sexual tension or playfulness, then I don’t think she has to worry about finding a man in her old age, or keeping the one she has. Many old women and men hang out together for fun and companionship. Old people can live together, but denying men sex because a woman doesn’t want it anymore? That’s wrong. If older men were free to have sex outside such a relationship, then such a scenario wouldn’t result in a man leaving an older woman, just for sex. All bets are off if the woman is actually interested in sex. Some women fail to appreciate how important sex is to most men, again, IMHO, and place too much importance on men having sex with other women, even when they are not interested in it themselves.

You also said, “I began to wonder if I looked old or something.” Are you kidding? Do you think people have a filter on their attractions, that men can only be attracted to people their own age? That was the funniest thing I ever read, that a man who hits on you thinks you look old! That was really, really funny. Thanks.

And I am certainly interested in woman in their 30s, or 40’s. I married my 1st wife in her 30s, and my second was already over 40 when I met her, 45 just before we married. Both women were divorced with two kids, one of each already a teenager. I certainly have never been bothered by such things. My first real, live-in relationship was with a woman 5 years older than me. There is only one woman under 30 I am interested in at all, and I am too old for her to even consider.

See also:

http://www.synovate.com/current/news/article/2006/04/older-men-find-older-women-just-as-attractive-as-their-younger-counterparts-survey-shows.html

All this being said, however, I think the question can be simplified to: Are women attractive? Certainly. Some are, some aren’t. Women that wouldn’t have been attractive to me when they were younger, aren’t suddenly going to be attractive when they get older, just because I am older. So, no, not all women are attractive to all men, nor are all men attractive to all women. Age can be a factor, but it is not the primary factor in a relationship, any more than a certain kind of look. We can be influenced by society: family, friends, commercial ads, movies, etc. but we are still attracted to who we are attracted to, regardless of sex, colors, or age. No one has any right to condemn anyone else for who they are attracted to, as long as the attraction is based on real physical interaction, not fantasy or mental disease.

The questions I should really pose here is: Are old men sexually attractive if they aren’t rich or famous?

Could it be? is better than shoulda-coulda

I feel good today. There is more bounce in my step, and my eyes seem clearer. It’s a warm fall day, of course, but it’s easy to overlook that when you’re busy obsessing over a failed marriage, an unrequited love, being short of money every month, having union meetings to call and preside over, and trying to figure out how to assist people who need help keeping their jobs, and being treated fairly at work, since they pay dues hoping the union can do that. I’ve a meeting today, but I went for my usual 4-shot espresso/Americano across the street. I could make my own, but Sunday mornings I want to get out of this casita and be around people. The cafe has wonderfully pleasant staff, and really good coffee. I realized on my way home that I didn’t feel compelled to see my ex anymore. Sometimes I’m tempted to call, to see about going over there, having sex again. I woke up thinking about sex with various people I know or knew, obviously feeling a bit horny this morning. I always have sexual dreams about my unrequited, but she is off limits.

My ex, the Dragon, is still by herself as far as I know. Her general hatred and mistrust of men should keep her that way for awhile. I keep thinking back to that time I went over to finish up the computer swap from my system to hers and having her standing next to me while I lay under the desk pushing and pulling cables and getting everything plugged in. She was wearing that light, almost transparent wrap she has and it was parted, exposing her bare legs next to my eyes. There was a small hole in it, and I mentioned it to her, talking from my position under the desk, not seeing her face. She answered, in a pleasant voice, that she knew about the hole, and regretted that the wrap was wearing out, as it was so comfortable. My hand ached to stroke her legs, and our conversation was not strained or angry, so, who knows? She is sexually attractive to me always. I also thought of others though.

I was married before this. Ran into her in the grocery store last weekend. Talked a bit, but we sometimes see each other at work, so it’s not like we haven’t kept up. I’ve asked her to come by and check out the new place before, or to come for coffee some on Sunday mornings when I’m across the street. I should have invited her right there and then to come by when she finished shopping, because she wasn’t all that far away from my little place, but I didn’t. I fantasized about being in bed with her again too. She still wears that small gold Tumi knife figurine that I gave her shortly after we met, but she’s been with the same guy now for about 13 years.

-

My mind connects a vision of Carla from about 27 years ago, to Karen, my current object of desire, unrequited, these last few years. Karen has facial acne, and Carla had facial acne. I remember Carla telling me just before she left that she was pregnant, and she needed money for an abortion, but when I pressed for more information, asked for some kind of evidence, she backed off. I thought she was just trying to squeeze me for money. She had been living in LA, but was here visiting, living with her sister. I met her at one of Mark’s construction parties. He had lots of gatherings of people to work on his house. Friends, students, friends of friends; they all came to help Mark make adobes for his walls, mix mud for the adobes and the floors, pour a slab for his kitchen/living area, etc. In the tradition of barn building, some people brought food and drink; others, like myself, came to labor. It was at one of these work parties that I met Carla, whose sister had brought her along. I don’t know how it started. I must have noticed her or even been introduced by her sister, who I knew from my brief stint as a math assistant at the technical vocational school that she and Mark both worked at. She was a very cute woman, long dark hair framing a pretty face, and it wasn’t long before we were hanging around each other. I took Carla for a ride on the motorcycle to cool off, and we stopped along the arroyo that runs along the nearby Pueblo. It was a damn hot day, and the water looked inviting, so we got in. Since it was next to a highway, we left our clothes on, but that didn’t stop us from playing around, and even dry humping a bit. Can you dry hump under water? Wet hump? Anyway, it was too public an area, and who knows what was in that ditch water? We decided to go to my house, and the sex was nice, very nice. We saw each other for awhile after that. I found it hard to imagine living with a smoker, however. She was sexy, so I can overlook a lot for that, like most men. The t-shirt she sometimes wore said ‘Good Stuff’, and she was. She was often at my house, so I bought a TV for entertainment. It had been years since I’d had someone to live with, and I just didn’t know what to do with her. I liked fucking her, but I wasn’t making any plans. If she had stayed around, who knows, maybe we’d have stayed together, and she’d have moved in permanently? As it was, she said she was going back to LA, and I found that was OK with me. She just announced that she was going. That was after she said she might be pregnant, but we seemed to have settled that, and she didn’t bring it up again. I bought her a carton of cigarettes as a parting gift.

Suddenly it occurred to me that Karen is exactly old enough to be Carla’s daughter. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head? They both have the same acne problem and the same build. K may even be smaller than the petite Carla, but since Carla smoked, that could have resulted in a small baby, from the oxygen deprivation. I have visions of Luke and Darth Vader: “I am your father”. Cool. I’d love to be Karen’s father. That would pretty much kill my sexual fantasies, but I would welcome the permanent link to her. I know Karen is adopted, and she knows her biological mother. She told me the last name once, but I can’t remember. What if? Man, I come up with doozies in this fevered imagination of mine. I had the same thought before, wondering if I could be Karen’s biological father with a another woman from my past.

Probably not, but there was this woman Chris, and she told me she was pregnant and that was somewhere in that same time period. She had been something. We mostly just had sex. Sex is one of my all-time favorite things to do. I was busy with a part-time job and lots of studying. I didn’t want a full-time relationship, or marriage. One time, Chris said she wouldn’t mind having another child. Her daughter had been taken to Florida by her ex. She said that, if she got pregnant, she knew someone who would marry her, even if I didn’t want to. I said OK, so I didn’t worry about it after that. One day, of course, she told me was pregnant, and wanted me to marry her. I reminded her we agreed not to do that, that I wasn’t interested in marriage. She threatened to abort the baby if I didn’t marry her, and I just wasn’t interested. I don’t know why. I certainly didn’t have a definite future at the time, and I felt no deep affection for her, and didn’t care if she had the baby or not. I never saw her again, so I don’t know if she decided to have the child or not. Another potential biological mother of Karen. How did I go from wanting to live with Karen, to marry her, and have children with her, to wondering if I could be her father? Well, I already know I’m insane. What sort of man believes he can hook up with a beautiful sexy young woman at my age? Why would she trust an asshole like me anyway?

Adjusting my life

It certainly feels more comfortable here now. I’m making the adjustment to single life in a new place. The cats are in tonight. It’s a bit colder, or they would be out running around, and coming in, nibbling their food, getting a quick petting and then going out again, many times an evening. Often they sleep together, but tonight one is curled up on a chair in the front room where I read. The other is curled up on the bed, and he is behind me now as I type. They’re funny, because often they end up in whatever room I’m in, and when I move, they gradually move with me. It would be lonelier without them. It’s not the same as having people around, but it is comforting nevertheless. Now, whenever I move from room to room, one of them is handy.
It was hard, at first, to get used to this. 14 years of life spent in the company of someone who is no longer around or even part of my life anymore – that took some getting used to. But I’m getting used to this place. It doesn’t feel so lonely here anymore. I felt cozy in my recliner reading a while ago, and at peace. The casita doesn’t seem so big and empty anymore; it feels more like home.
I haven’t been dating, or even trying to. I thought about it, but abandoned the idea. At times I feel reclusive, not wanting to deal with people any more, not willing to suffer dating. At first I went to movies, but lately I haven’t wanted to. I did go to the old nightclub, where my ex and I spent so many hours dancing Salsa. It was a celebration of ten years of Salsa there. The college radio station broadcast live all night, since they do a Salsa show on Friday nights anyway. It was fun to be there. I keep thinking of my ex, wondering if she would suddenly show up, or if she was listening at home as we would if we weren’t out dancing already.
Roberta was there. I’d known her many years ago, and we liked each other, but never hooked up. She appeared to be single, and I’d seen her at the nightclub on several occasions, and at other Salsa events too. She is a great and passionate dancer. She looks good too. Great smile and a pleasant face, and her body moves sensuously. I asked her to dance, but picked the worst time, just as she was served a plate of food at the bar. She apologized, saying she was very hungry.
I saw her dance a few times later, but didn’t seek her out. I am, after all, not Mr. Suave Dancer. My ex and I had worked out a way to enjoy ourselves without being very skilled at all the Salsa moves and turns. We even tried a class, and learned some moves, but even with some practice, we soon forgot everything. Seems more fun just to get out and move, and the rhythm flows from the dance floor into your legs, or something like that.
Met Beva there that night too. She remembered me from almost 30 years ago. I remembered her vaguely. I had gone with several people to her place one day, and she had decided to trim my hair. I had long hair until shortly before that, but had pulled it all into a ponytail and cut it off. It wasn’t all that neat, but I was OK with it. Beva had taken it on herself to fix it. That’s all I remember of her, except I knew her husband too, I can’t remember much of him either. He recently walked out on her, so she told me she was kind of freaked out. It was very sudden and she felt lost. She asked me for my ‘contact’ information, so I wrote down my email and phone number. She called me the other day, left a message on my answering machine at home. She said she’d like to talk, maybe meet for coffee. She sounded nervous, and said she is needing to talk, and knew I had just been through what she was going through. I didn’t call her back right away.
Tonight I did call, but this time she wasn’t there. I left a short message. I still don’t want to date, and I really don’t know her. I can’t remember ever being attracted to her, or really knowing her at all, and I find getting to know new people undesirable.
Ah, well. In the meantime, my brother invited me for Thanksgiving, but it’s an awfully long drive alone. I really don’t have the money to plunk down on airfare, so I don’t think I will go. It would be nice. My new sister-in-law wrote me asking when I’d arrive, and to bring the bike! That would be a long, hard ride. Even in a car with my ex, it was tiring and we had to stop overnight. I feel comfortable enough here now that staying alone on a holiday will not bother me. In fact, I think I’d prefer it. After Xmas I’ll be heading to Iowa for the Presidential primary there. It’s another really long trip, but I won’t have to drive, and I’ll be with other people. That will be fun.

Gold Glasses for Grandmom

“There is gold in them.” The woman in the antique store told me that the glasses were made with gold. They were old glasses. She didn’t know how it was done. They were red. I couldn’t understand why glasses made with gold in them could be red, but there they were. She said that was how you could tell, that only glasses made that way could be that color of red. Blood red. Nothing else is that exact color. She thought they had been made during the Depression. I was so intrigued that I came back a few days later and bought them. People have been coloring glass for centuries. The ancient Romans knew that adding gold to glass would convert it into a ruby-red material when heated in a controlled fashion. My favorite colors have always been blue and green and black. I think I liked the glasses more because I imagined the gold swirled around in their making. I’d done some glass blowing, so I could appreciate the red hot glowing balls of molten glass being formed into joints, into tubes and balls and shapes. The hot glass is so pretty that you want to touch its perfection, but you cannot. Years later I was to work in a printed-circuit board shop, and learn how gold is applied to the finger tabs along the edge on each board, the tabs that connect the board to other boards, and to power. Gold’s properties as a conductor make it almost perfect for connecting these thin circuits. One need only apply a current across an object in a tank of acidic dissolved gold, and you can coat that object with a layer of gold. Of course, on a circuit board, under the gold is a layer of nickel. I do not know exactly what the nickel is for, unless it is to create a thickness and strength for the very thin layer of gold, which could otherwise be worn off quickly. And the gold must have something to adhere to. I don’t remember exactly why nickel was used, for once you see the gold tank, you forget all else. It is a shining pool of red, the color of blood. For gold does not dissolve into any old solvent. To dissolve gold and maintain it in solution you need cyanide – actually hydrogen cyanide is its proper name. The structure that forms is similar to a structure found in hemoglobin. Cyanide is also necessary for the commercial preparation of amino acids. It is considered likely that hydrogen cyanide played a part in the origin of life. It is released from molecules in cherries, apricots, bitter almonds and apple seeds. At the right concentration hydrogen cyanide will kill a human within a few minutes. The toxicity is caused by the cyanide ion, which prevents cellular respiration.
It occurred to me to ask my grandmother if she had known about these glasses, and she said she remembered when Ruby Reds were popular, but had never owned any. I had only five of the small juice glasses. Five. She had five children left before my father died, but she had raised six healthy children. Six.  One of my aunts had died, hit by a car, while still a young and beautiful mother. I brought the glasses with me to my father’s wake and gave them to her then. I don’t know why. I seldom saw her, and wanted to give her something. After a while at the wake I saw her, and she was a little on the tipsy side as my father might had said. She was carrying the glasses around the house with her. I dismissed it at the time as an old woman having had too much to drink. But she was hugging the glasses, and would not put them down. After that I looked for more. I finally found one, and bought it, for it had finally occurred to me that she might have found more significance in the number of glasses than I had intended. I sent it to her so that she could have six blood-red cyanide glasses of gold, one for each of her children.