A perfect guy

My friend Lou is very ill. I ask if she feels afraid.

She says that would depend on when I ask.

Then I visit my friend Del in Memory Care. We are petri dishes un-growing human cultures.

Live long enough and you’ve been some combination of: instrumental, detrimental, sentimental, ornamental, alarming, disarming, furious, curious, precocious, ferocious, ready, steady, regretful, forgetful, thoughtful, awful, artful, frightful, sunny, fun.

Then dimmed. First, some things take place dimly. Then all things take place dimly.

Frank Ostaseski, the Buddhist hospice teacher, says in Japanese Zen the term shoji translates as “birth-death.” Just one small hyphen in between. I’d say that hyphen is huge. I’d say it’s not a hyphen.

I freelanced for the Hallmark Channel. You know, movies in which a woman in stilettos steps in the muddy fields of authenticity and falls headfirst into the well-lit, well-muscled arms of the perfect guy for her.

Hallmark movies and nearly every drama or sitcom always have a couple like that. Perhaps scripted by a bot. When I was a freelance writer, we wrote everything ourselves.

Now? If I were an airport, I’d always have too few runways for too many planes. And no well-lit handsome arms. I haven’t been held in years, except when I’m put on hold.

Some people think I’m more screwed up than I seem. Some think I’m less screwed up, instead. The truth varies and is determined by number of planes.

Good writing occurs when the writer removes everything else. Sometimes I can.

If my brain had a recorded announcement, the announcement would vary between:

*We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Normal was 2006.
*Storage almost full. Would you like to upgrade your storage?

*Overextended. Overcommitted. Overdue. Overwhelmed. Data limit reached. Speeds may be reduced.

My friend Kate says she’s about to bolt like that Scandinavian centenarian. Climb out the window and see the world. She means the 100-year-old-man in a book called I-forget-what. That’s what I call all books now.

Tommie says they say youth is wasted on the young. She adds she spilled every last drop of youth. Then somehow recouped and spilled them again.

Apps for dying let you share your final wishes and other important stuff with your nearest and dearest in case they’re not real near.

The former professor of physics says, Or not real dear.

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