Gator Ink

Here in the anteroom to eternity, we are awash with folks whose trendy body art from the millennium has drooped alarmingly.  We're law-abiders here, and no law demands so much of our baby boomer bodies as the law of gravity.  Florida is closer to the equator, you know, and gravity here pulls a bit harder on our hangy-down parts.  The place is lousy with long-long-long-stemmed roses, stretched-out dolphins, and ducks that have morphed into swans.  It's not often pretty.

I knew this would happen.  Back in the '00s, when my son returned from his fourth tour of duty - a dangerous year in Iraq - he sported a nicotine habit and a dragon inked across his chest and left shoulder.  In a rare moment of discretion, I decided not to comment on the smoking.  He was long grown and a war veteran, and I held my tongue about his addiction.  But I casually pointed out that gravity might have its way with his tattoo by the time he hit 60.

I immediately wished I had kept my arrant presumption to myself, and a quiet rift opened between us.  In truth, the dragon was beautifully rendered, subtly shaded and allowed to peek out coyly from an open collar or a short-sleeve shirt.  But what's said can't be unsaid, and I lived with it.

Fast-forward six months to Thanksgiving dinner.  Beers were consumed, times were good, and Erik was still smoking.  I had what seemed an inspiration at the time and announced that if he would quit smoking, I would get a tattoo.  I'm not sure what reaction I expected, but there was nothing.  Nothing at all.  I sensed I had jammed my foot still further into my mouth.  Oops.

Six more months passed, and we hosted a pool party on the deck, with Erik and his friends among the guests.  Beers were consumed and times were good.  One of Erik's co-workers struck up a conversation.  Then, from nowhere: "So, Mr. Newton, I hear you're getting a tattoo."

I have always been proud that I didn't miss a beat in my response.  "Yes," I said, "Yes I am."  I love simple declarative sentences.

Erik accompanied me to the tattoo parlor a few days later, not without a certain glee I think.  And I sat for a portrait on the back of my right shoulder.  I didn't need to worry how the tat would look when I was sixty - I was already on the cusp of that venerable age.

The design will be familiar to fans of M.C. Escher.  I think it's rather fetching.  And my relationship with my tobacco-free son has never been better.

Newt

The Tyranny of the Empty Page

Uh, world?  Yeah, it's me - - -  Newt.  I'm still here.  I got lost for a while, but I'm back.  Now I have nothing to write about except the damn fool that . . .  No, wait a minute.  Let me start again.

I got back on my bike yesterday after almost three years of indolence and lipid accretion.  They say you never forget how to ride a bike.  As usual, they're wrong.

I took a short and cautious spin around the block, reveling in the breeze on my face and the bugs in my teeth, fat little legs pumping furiously.  Then triumphantly back into my driveway. 

You know that precarious moment between stopping a bike and planting your feet on the ground?  The moment when all your ponderous weight is still on the pedal but your forward momentum is spent, when gravity suddenly demands your full attention?  And you're supposed to tilt gracefully toward the other foot, the foot not on the pedal? 

Yeah, I did that wrong. 

The bleeding has largely stopped, Tylenol being chemical proof that God loves me still.  Part of me wants to feel healthier because I actually exercised for a few minutes.  But another part of me looks at the gash in my shank, perplexed.  "Why, the damned fool forgot how to ride a bike." 

I wonder if I remember how this blog thing works.  Let's see what develops.  And next time, I'll lean the other way.

Newt

Naked Anxiety

It happened again last light.  I was OJ-ing through an airport when I looked down.  I was naked.  Again.

I thought, "Screw it; it's just that dream again," and hopped on the down escalator, hoping I was right.  I still feel the escalator stairs stinging the soles of my bare feet, and I wondered if the cowcatcher at the bottom would rip my toes off or worse.

I'm getting better as I age.  Time was I would discover my nakedness while frantically searching for the room where my Advanced Calculus exam was being conducted, thinking, "How I could have missed an entire semester of classes?"  Now when the stress dream kicks in, I just wonder what happened to the pants where I put my plane ticket.

I expected when I retired that stress would wither to a curious artifact of a prior life.  Nope.  Here is an eternal principle:  stress expands to fill the emotional space available.

Last week I flew to Robinsonville, Mississippi, which is a suburb of Clack and is usually called Tunica, hard by the Mississippi River.  Permanent population about 6, plus the droves visiting the ten gambling houses perched by the levee.

Of course, you can't fly to Robinsonville, with or without clothing.  You have to fly to Memphis, Tennessee and drive your rented Toyota Yaris 40 miles south on US 61.  The "US" designation on the route number is surely aspirational, since everyone from the area speaks only Clack.  Flying and driving, however, give me no anxiety.  I'm at peace with those things.

I went to Tunica/Robinsonville-near-Clack to play cards.  Duplicate bridge, specifically.  I took up bridge when I retired, hoping to ease the stress that I expected never again to encounter.  Just in case.

In due time, I got pretty good at bridge, in a newcomer sort of way.  It's a demanding game, and I dreamed often of dealing naked.  But I progressed faster than whatever norm applies, and the dreams subsided  That's how I knew I no longer had enough stress in my life.  So I volunteered to teach newbies how to play the game.  And to write a blog for them.  (If you have nothing better to do in life, the blog is here.)

Teaching is a good way to learn.  You need only be a lesson or so ahead of your students, and you can fake the rest.  While you explain timeless principles, those principles become gouged a little deeper in your own grey matter.  In theory.

Teaching's fine, but writing it all down in public raises stress to a new level.  It's not just ambitious newcomers who read the blog, but also players with the decades of experience that I lack.

So there I was in Robinsonville, playing the game and collecting a new bridge credential that I pretend does not matter to me.  That, I think, should give me the confidence to wear clothes all the way home.

When I got smugly home to beautiful Tampa Bay, I fired off a blog article on the subtleties of a peculiar bridge hand that appeared at the tournament:

♠ Q

♥ A J 10 9 5 4

♦ A Q J 10 9 7

♣  (void)

(I just did that to show you I could.)

I explained on-line that the hand should be bid in a certain way to take advantage of the lack of black cards.  Great lesson for new players.  QED.

Not Exactly.

If bridge players share a common trait, it is the criticism gene.  So when I recommend Doubling over 1 Club, there is always someone to argue that the Unusual 2 No Trump would have been a superior tactic.  The fact she was right made matters all the worse.

So here I am waking up on a Memphis Airport escalator again, starkers.  I'd take up checkers, but I have a bridge blog installment due Saturday.

Newt

My Navel Engagement With HIPPA

So I took some time off to contemplate my navel.  As it happens, my navel is surrounded by so much acreage that it took me the first six months to find it.  Now, however, my umbilical year is done, and I have returned to the startling awareness that little has changed.  Case in point --

My Darling Judy picked up a prescription for Prednisone this morning.  Long experience has taught us that the P drug is not taken in the usual once- or twice-a-day fashion, but invariably requires a big initial dose, followed by sequentially smaller doses, until you're taking just one pill a day, and then the bottle is empty. Otherwise you may experience sweaty palms and death-like symptoms.

The Rx label said, "Take one a day by mouth."

My DJ did not get caught up in how else she might take pills than by mouth, but she did call the doctor's office to inquire whether this simple instruction might be incorrect.

Right - you can't just call a doctor's office, ask a question and expect a simple answer.  So she pleaded with the computer to have the medication nurse call back.  Then she went off to play bridge, oblivious to the regulatory machinery that she had set in motion.

I was still rooting around in my navel when the phone rang.  It was Mitsy, the medication nurse, looking for Judy.

"I can help you," I said.  "She just needs to know how to take the Prednisone: once a day or on a more traditional graduated schedule."  That's when I discovered that the world had not changed during my omphalic musings.

"I'm afraid I can't talk to you because of HIPPA," said Mitsy.

"I'm her husband; you can talk to me. My name is on a form somewhere in your office."

"Um ..."  It was a pregnant "Um ...."

"I promise I will not tell the government that you have disclosed the ultra-secret instructions for taking Prednisone."

"Um . . ."  She was considering how long it would take her to find Judy's HIPPA form with my name on it.

"Look," I said.  "If the FBI comes to your office and accuses you of breaching Prednisone security, you can swear that I threatened your first-born child."

I almost had her.

"Okay, then," I continued, "I guess the patient will just have to follow the instructions on the bottle.  The worse that can happen is sweaty palms."

"Oh, no," she blurted. "There's death-like ... um ... symptoms... Um ... theoretically, that is."

"Okay, I'll wait while you check the HIPPA form." 

I got my answer with surprising alacrity, and now I'm waiting for the FBI to appear on my doorstep.

Newt

P.S. ---

Dear N.S.A.:

This blog entry is a work of fiction, and any reference to Mitsy is a fragment of my loyal and patriotic imagination.  She doesn't even have a first-born child.

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."

--- Alec Guinness 1977 

Sweat

It's quiet now, here in God's waiting room, the foyer of forever.  The Canadians have gone home, unfamiliar as they are with the miracle of Freon.  A fly buzzes against the window for a bit, then sputters and spirals one final time to the floor, silent.  It's the dead of summer.

In the North, people ask, friends ask, "Isn't it hot?"

How to answer?

I flip off a sardonic, "You don't have to shovel Hot."  But that dodges the issue.  Of course it's hot.  Damn hot.  Egg fry hot.  Milk curdles on the counter while you hunt down a cereal bowl.  I love it.

It's true.  Air conditioning is fair respite, but the outdoor heat is to revel in.  The Finns invented saunas so they could bask in the essence of Florida's summer.  The Romans had their caldaria, the Aztecs their temazcal.  They knew:  sweat cleanses the pores and the soul.  Florida folk have the cleanest pores and souls in the known universe.

Life slows in the Florida summer.  Folks stroll.  Yesterday watching a youth football team practice, I saw a tough old coach twirling a parasol.  At mid-day, there is nothing but you and the heat.  The mosquitoes have all cooked off, and your skin glows incandescent.  The off-shore breeze is a blow-torch.  The siesta is the great restorer.

I have been here four years, and each year the absence of winter cold is more normal, as is the infinite heat of summer, both reasons to render thanks to the weather gods.  Except perhaps the hurricane god.

This year we had record heat.  I'm alive and thriving.

Newt