Oldie finds New Yorker – Shock

What did people do before the ageing process? Died, I guess. Nowadays, thankfully, a cornucopia of medication keeps us going and the advancing years can be gauged by the number of pill pickets you need to keep you healthy-ish. 

I have my routine. I take three with my second coffee of the morning – it just happens to be the second because the first goes straight down. Wumf! This morning, reaching into my dressing gown pocket for my dosing, I accidentally sliced my finger on a stiff piece of silver foil, and since one of the pills is a blood thinner my damn finger bled for half an hour. Ironic, huh?

I’ve been taking tabs to lower my blood pressure for years. It seems it’s a family thing. But that’s okay. Thankfully I’m still here. So far, touch wood (no pun intended) I’ve never used Viagra, which I understand lowers your blood pressure too. I wonder if my blood pressure would drop so low that my heart would stop mid-coitus and I’d go out in a blaze of glory. Anyway, enough of this smut.

My mother, still with us and compos mentis, lives 150 miles away which is a 4 hour drive on our congested roads. I take my time and go with the flow when tripping out to visit, taking regular stops at service stations to flex my ageing hips. It was at one of these stops that I recently found, and bought, a copy of The New Yorker magazine. I love the New Yorker fiction podcasts and often listen to them on the trip but have never actually seen a copy of the magazine in the flesh (though you can read it online, of course, but, you know, I like to hold the paper sometimes). There is a short piece inside of a woman who for years has been writing her own newspaper where she is the only subject. Riveting headlines such a “Girl finds hard boiled egg” draw the reader in. So I guess the headline of my blog should be “Oldie cuts finger on pill packet SHOCK”. 

“These pill packets are a scourge on our society,” said the Oldie today (not the The Oldie magazine), “ and if you look closely you can see that they are foreign pill packets. Not like our pill packets.” The Oldie sucked his finger and walked on.

Also inside is the wonderful story “False Star” by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain which I had listened to on my last trip. Great to be able to read it too. I am reminded of the excitement I used to feel when finding the latest copy of Rolling Stone back in the late 60s.

So, with an appropriate segue, here I am in my late 60s, saving up The New Yorker for this evening, when I shall take my 4th pill of the day with my evening gin and tonic.

As my GP says, Life is for living. 

As The Dead said, I will get by.